Oral Answers to Questions

BUSINESS, ENTERPRISE AND REGULATORY REFORM

The Secretary of State was asked—

Social Tariffs

David Taylor: What recent assessment he has made of the potential contribution of social tariffs to the reduction of fuel poverty in North-West Leicestershire.

Malcolm Wicks: We have made no assessment of the individual contribution that social tariffs have made in specific locations. However, following publication of the energy White Paper, we continue to work closely with Ofgem and energy suppliers to analyse the range of social programmes—including tariffs—that suppliers currently offer, in order to draw out best practice and highlight where improvements are needed. Across Great Britain, about 700,000 households are on social tariffs, rebates or trust funds.

David Taylor: The numbers in fuel poverty have doubled since 2003, but can be dramatically reduced if suppliers implement in a meaningful way the energy White Paper challenge to offer social tariffs to their fuel-poor customers. Does the Minister agree that the upcoming energy Bill should give Ofgem reserve powers to require a minimum standard for social tariffs, to avoid the situation in which some Scrooge suppliers backtrack on voluntary commitments and dilute their initiatives to the meagre penny-pinching level of those who offer the least?

Malcolm Wicks: We recognise that after years of progress in reducing the number of households affected by fuel poverty, the numbers are now increasing because of rising energy costs, which are, of course, a global phenomenon. I have met all the chief executives of the major supply companies to talk about the importance of social tariffs. Some companies are doing well and others are now moving in the right direction. We are keen that social tariffs—alongside social policies such as energy efficiency programmes and the winter fuel payment—should play a full part in tackling fuel poverty.

Post Offices

John Barrett: If he will make a statement on the post office closure programme in Scotland.

Patrick McFadden: On 17 May my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced the Government's response to the public consultation on the post office network. Post Office Ltd is now carrying that forward through local implementation plans, and there will be six such plans for Scotland. The first area plan for Scotland, for the Greater Glasgow, central Argyll and Bute area, is out for local consultation. The plan covering the hon. Gentleman's constituency is scheduled for consultation in August next year.

John Barrett: I thank the Minister for that answer, but given that the Government have announced 2,500 closures across the country, can he assure the people of Edinburgh that that will be a genuine consultation? Or has he already decided on the number of offices to close, so that all he is prepared to discuss is the method of execution?

Patrick McFadden: The announcement on 17 May did indicate the number of offices that would close, so the consultation, in the hon. Gentleman's area and in others, is about how that is to be implemented. Postwatch and the local authorities will be involved, and the hon. Gentleman and his constituents can be involved, but the direction of travel was set by the announcement. The reasons are clear: as a society, we are using the post office less than before. Some 4 million fewer customers a week are going through the doors of post offices, which are losing, collectively, some £3.5 million a week.

Russell Brown: My hon. Friend knows only too well that it is usage of, and footfall in, sub-post offices that will ensure that they continue to operate. Is he in a position to speculate as to how many Members of Parliament will, on reaching retirement age, open a Post Office card account to receive their state pension?

Patrick McFadden: I would not like to speculate on that. At the moment, eight out of 10 pensioners choose to have their pension paid into their bank account—and among new retirees, that figure is nine out of 10. My hon. Friend is right to point to the trends in lifestyle that are driving many of the changes. However, we should give credit to the management of the Post Office for innovating and developing new products, such as broadband services, selling foreign currency and—of relevance at this time of year—the recent launch of the Christmas pre-payment scheme, which will offer a secure outlet for people who want to save for Christmas in that way.

Michael Weir: Despite what the Minister says, the Post Office has made it clear to campaigners in Scotland that if a post office is saved from closure after a local campaign, another post office in the same area will simply be closed instead. Will that not pit community against community? Does it not demonstrate that the whole consultation process is a sham, and that the Post Office is simply engaged in an exercise to cut the network—an exercise that is being pursued in Scotland, despite reports that it has been put back in many areas of England because of the local elections in May?

Patrick McFadden: The announcement on 17 May made it clear that the size of the network would have to reduce. There is no secrecy about it. The local consultations are about how that is to be done. It is true that the network must reduce in size, and that is accepted by the Federation of SubPostmasters, and by most witnesses to the Select Committee on Trade and Industry when it examined the issue.

Carbon Capture

Paddy Tipping: What financial support he is making available to carbon capture and storage projects.

John Hutton: On Monday my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister launched the competition for a commercial-scale carbon capture and storage demonstration project. My Department will support up to 100 per cent. of the additional capital and operating costs of the project, which will be selected through a competitive process. In addition we have a £35 million programme for carbon abatement technologies, including CCS.

Paddy Tipping: I am grateful for that reply, and for this important initiative. Does the Secretary of State accept that the electricity generators feel that there have been long delays in bringing the programme forward? Secondly, there are concerns about the kind of technology being evaluated—post-combustion rather than pre-combustion. Can he say whether there will be only one winner of the demonstration project, or is there scope for more applicants?

John Hutton: My hon. Friend is right to raise those points. I have great respect for him, and I know that he is a strong supporter of what we are trying to do. Given the technical complexity of the technology it was right and proper for the Government to select one type of competition to run. When we have done that, clearly we have to make a choice. It is worth reminding ourselves that only two other countries in the world are seeking to develop projects like this. Post-combustion technology will give the United Kingdom a potential leading role in developing this important technology, which could play a significant role in meeting our carbon reduction targets by 2050. I understand my hon. Friend's frustration. We are trying to move forward as quickly as possible on this project, but given the scale of the technology and the issue of public finance, it is right that we make these decisions appropriately.

Lembit �pik: Given that the first proposed UK carbon capture and storage demonstration plant seems at least seven years away, as the hon. Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping) implied, how will the Secretary of State ensure that new fossil fuel generating capacity will necessarily include the CCS capability to meet the emissions goals? What carbon price does he estimate will persuade UK energy producers to include CCS in their fossil fuel-based generation designs as a matter of course?

John Hutton: I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman is a supporter of what we are trying to do and carbon capture generally, as I hope all hon. Members will be. In relation to his two points, we will be publishing some proposals in the very near future on aspects of capture readiness which should be included in the consenting process, and how this might work in practice. On the economics of carbon sequestration, we want to see a much more robust and strengthened trading scheme. Clearly that must involve a much higher price for carbon. We need to see how phase 2 beds in and then we have important decisions to make for phase 3, which will be the moment when we have to address the issue that the hon. Gentleman raised.

Michael Clapham: May I tell my right hon. Friend that when the Trade and Industry Committee met staff of the EU Commissioner for Energy we were told by an energy economist that what was required in the United Kingdom were four demonstration plants and 15 in Europe. To judge from what my right hon. Friend has just said to my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping), we are not going to see that kind of investment in clean coal technology. If we do not see it, we will not be able to have that technology on stream, and as a result we will meet the energy crisis much earlier than we will be able to have nuclear power stations on stream. Therefore it is important to concentrate our efforts on getting clean coal technology up and running. Has my right hon. Friend had meetings with the Energy Commissioner, and if so, what has been the outcome?

John Hutton: I am tempted to say that the European Commission would say that, wouldn't it? The United Kingdom is willing to play its full role, but other countries in the European Union should, too. I am not aware of any EU country other than the UK that has made a commitment to funding a CCS project. My hon. Friend asks whether we can support up to four projects. I do not think that that is possible. We believe that we can fund one significant-scale demonstration project. I still believe that, having chosen this particular path of post-combustion coal and of running a competitive process which, if we had taken the advice of the Conservative party, we could not have run, the United Kingdom has the opportunity of being a world leader in this important technology. It can bring significant growth to UK manufacturing companies and engineering consultancies. We are being responsible. We are committing public money, so there will always be a limitthe Conservatives may have forgotten thatto the amount the public can afford to put into such technologies.

Economic Partnership Agreements

Andy Reed: What progress is being made in negotiations on economic partnership agreements; and if he will make a statement.

Gareth Thomas: There has been progress in discussions between all African, Caribbean and Pacific regions and the European Union, and further negotiations will take place next week. We continue to work to maximise the development benefit from economic partnership agreements.

Andy Reed: As my hon. Friend knows, there is a great deal of criticism of the speed with which some of the deals are being done, especially in countries that feel under pressure to achieve a preferential deal by the end of the year. What measures is he taking to ensure that the deals are good for the countries involved, and that they are not being forced into taking something they do not want? What exactly are the development benefits that he foresees from such deals? There is a great deal of scepticism about what they are.

Gareth Thomas: As my hon. Friend rightly says, concerns have been expressed, in particular by some civil society groups, about the pace of the negotiations. However, I remind the House that we have known for a considerable time that we would be in this situation, and that we continue to hear from all developing countries in the ACP regions that they want to negotiate an economic partnership agreement. The specific development benefits that we have fought for, and secured, are that all ACP regions should have duty and quota-free access to the EU market. We have achieved that, albeit with transitional periods for two products. Furthermore, we want much simpler rules of origin to maximise the benefits of that duty and quota-free access offer, and there has been significant movement in that direction, although we would have liked a little more.

Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: As the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Reed) has just said, the agreements have to be concluded by 31 December, so time is short. As the Minister knows, the EU Commission is using its full might to negotiate with some very small countries in the ACP regions. Over recent weeks I have visited a number of those countries, where I met senior Ministersand there is concern because they feel that the British Government have not stood up enough to make sure that proper impact assessments have been carried out so that the severe downturn in jobs and employment, and the damage to some of their economies, can be properly cushioned by a realistic package of international development assistance. Before signing the agreements, what will the British Government do to ensure that the transitional assistance is in place?

Gareth Thomas: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development and I, and other Ministers, have been in discussion with a series of developing countries in each ACP region. As I have pointed out, all developing countries indicated that they continue to want to sign economic partnership agreements. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there will be some adjustment costs and he will, I am sure, have noted the significant increase in funding for development through the EU development fund and in the bilateral budgets of a range of EU member states to help with the costs of adjustment. In addition, we have secured commitments from the commissioner that the pace of market opening from the ACP regions will be at the pace that the ACP countries want. Indeed, markets for some goods from the ACP regions will not have to be opened at all.

Nuclear Power

John Whittingdale: If he will make a statement on Government policy on nuclear power generation.

John Hutton: We have consulted on the basis of a preliminary view that it is in the public interest to give private sector energy companies the option of investing in new nuclear power stations. The consultation ended in October, and I shall announce a final decision early in the new year.

John Whittingdale: But does the Secretary of State not accept that unless he moves quickly to announce the decision to go ahead with the new generation of nuclear power stations, energy companies will have no alternative but to invest in new conventional power if they are to fill the coming energy gap? Does he accept that there is growing public support for investment in new nuclear power, not least in communities such as Bradwell-on-Sea in my constituency, which have had long experience of living next door to a nuclear power station?

John Hutton: I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those comments, and I agree with him about the need to make the decision as quickly as possible. The consultation shows that his view of where public opinion is moving is also mine. There is little doubt that people are concerned about both the challenge of climate change and the importance of future energy security for the UK. I hope that he will exert his best endeavours to persuade his right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that nuclear power should not be a last resort.

Kelvin Hopkins: Instead of building nuclear power stations, there is the possibility of using generating barragesparticularly in the Severn, but there are many other strongly tidal estuaries around Britain's coast that could equally well provide power generation. Will my right hon. Friend look at those first, before he considers nuclear power?

John Hutton: I agree with my hon. Friend in many respects, and my view is that we must look at all these things simultaneously. The clock is ticking. Time is running out. We do not have the luxury of sitting back, luxuriating, to consider the various options. We have now got to make decisions. On renewable energy, I agree strongly with my hon. Friend that we should explore, as aggressively as we can, sources of tidal power. We have committed ourselves to undertake a series of feasibility studies that will extend not just to the Severn barrage, but to other projects across the UK that have potential, and I hope that he will support us in getting on with that as quickly as possible.

Peter Luff: When the Secretary of State gave his very persuasive evidence to the Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Committee on Tuesday, he indicated that planning permission exists for some 30 GW of generating capacityI think that he was indicating section 36 consenta very large proportion of which will not be constructed in practice. Is his Department's view that there is a very large generating gap for which new nuclear, renewable or even conventional generating capacity must be built, and for which consent does not exist currently?

John Hutton: The National Grid produces an annual statement of its assessments of the gap, as the hon. Gentleman describes it, and of what is in the pipeline. Our information is that steps are being taken to ensure that the necessary margin of energy supply will be available to the UK when we need it. I hope that I have made the position clear to him and his Committee, and I thank him for the very nice words that he said at the beginning of his question.

Patricia Hewitt: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way to get the long-term investment that we need in both low-carbon and no-carbon energy is to set a high price on carbon? Is it his judgment that the next stage of the European emissions trading scheme will, in fact, enable that price on carbon to be set effectively?

John Hutton: Yes, I agree strongly with my right hon. Friend about the importance of the emissions trading scheme, and I thank her for all the work that she did when she was leading my Department. She did an excellent job. Our aim is to make the scheme the principal mechanism in helping us to meet the challenge of climate change and reduce carbon emissions. I agree with her strongly that the proof of the pudding will be in setting an effective market price for carbonand that would certainly be higher than it is at the moment.

John Redwood: How do the costs of new nuclear power compare with those of other low-carbon or no-carbon technologies, and what kind of taxpayer guarantee or subsidy would be needed at current carbon prices?

John Hutton: We have published all that information in the energy White Paper, and I am very happy to send it to the right hon. Gentleman. All our work indicates that nuclear electricity will be a very cost-effective form of energy supply for the future. One of the significant challenges that we must also address is that we need our energy to be clean and secure, but the price must be affordable for consumers and businesses. The information is in the public domain; I will happily share it with the right hon. Gentleman, and if he wants to discuss the detail, I look forward to having that discussion with him.

David Drew: I hear what my right hon. Friend says, but the basic integrity of the industry involves the people who work in it, and there is real concern in the industry about the number of jobs being lost and the increased reliance on contractorisation. Will he meet colleagues in the House who are interested in how we can maintain, and indeed restore, the vitality of the industry, so that we can prevent any future job losses and give the industry a chance in the future?

John Hutton: Yes, I am happy to do that, and to discuss the issues with my hon. Friend. I agree that among the most important assets of the industry are the people, and the skills they represent. If we are going to confirm the preliminary decision, we must make the right decisions to ensure that the industry, going forward, has the right array of skills to do its job properly.

Renewable Energy (Public Buildings)

Bob Russell: If he will hold discussions with ministerial colleagues on the installation in all new public buildings of low-carbon electricity and heat generators powered from renewable energy sources.

Malcolm Wicks: I regularly meet Ministers in other Departments, in particular the Department for Communities and Local Government, to determine how to improve the overall sustainability of both new and existing non-domestic buildings, including those owned or occupied by the public sector. The hon. Gentleman is right: new public buildings should be exemplars of energy efficiency, renewable technologies and sustainable development.

Bob Russell: I am grateful to the Minister for that helpful response. May I encourage him to develop incentives across central Government and, in particular, local government, so that what he has been discussing with ministerial colleagues can be delivered? For example, two major public buildingsa new art gallery and a new football stadiumare currently being constructed in my constituency, neither of which have any energy-producing mechanisms. Had the incentives been there, those would have been included.

Malcolm Wicks: At the moment, the picture is mixed, and that is not good enough. There is good news in Croydon: the Ashburton learning village, which includes a new school, has a fantastic array of photovoltaics. It is good example of howthrough both the low-carbon buildings programme and the work of the Department for Children, Schools and Familiesa lot more money is going into renewable technologies in our schools. That has not only an environmental impact, but an educational one, because when children learn about their relationship to energy and energy's relationship to global warming, we begin to win the minds, as well as the hearts, of the next generation. I recognise that we need to do more.

Mark Lazarowicz: Has my hon. Friend had a chance to see the report from the Renewables Advisory Board, which was published yesterday? Apparently, the RAB says that the market for equipping zero-carbon homes with energy from renewables could amount to almost 2 billion a year, but that under current projections, there will not be enough firms supplying biomass boilers or solar panels to meet the increase in zero-carbon housing. What is he doing to help meet the Government's admirable targets in this area, which were set out by the Prime Minister earlier this week?

Malcolm Wicks: The key text is Sir Nicholas Stern's report. I think that we all recognise that although we have a challenge in terms of global warming, we also have an economic and commercial opportunity. There will be an array of new business opportunities and new businesses as we grappleit is a challengewith concepts such as zero-carbon dwellings, renewable technologies and the decommissioning of various plants. These are new opportunities for British business, and the Secretary of State is absolutely determined that our Department will lead the way in greening Britain's industry to rise to the environmental challenge and the immense commercial opportunity.

Nigel Evans: The Minister will know that, irrespective of how one accesses the energy, investment in conservation is far more economically effective. Will he therefore give an assurance that for all public buildingsparticularly those being refurbishedthe Government will look again at how to ensure that conservation is built in at the very heart of the design of new construction and refurbishment?

Malcolm Wicks: Yes, that is vital. I assure the hon. Gentleman that in central Government, every Department has targets to reduce its own emissions and to become more sustainable. There are major challenges in relation to new building. However, on housing construction, I am impressed that the Minister for Housing now has a taskforce, of which I am a part, working with the construction industry on these issues. I understand, however, that we are talking about not just house building, but buildings in general.

Adrian Bailey: I welcome the Minister's comments about the economic potential of new industries in this area. May I bring to his attention the vast potential of geothermal energy, which is often overlooked? Not only does it involve the lowest carbon consumption, but it offers enormous potential to companies, such as Forkers in my constituency, that are pioneering developments in it. Will he undertake to look at building regulations on public buildings to see how geothermal energy can be promoted?

Malcolm Wicks: Yes, and work is under way on that. Geothermal energy is an important technology. It is one of an array of renewable technologies that we need to consider. We need to find ways of incentivising some of the newer technologies more than, say, onshore wind farms, and we are looking closely at how that can be done. It is important that those involved with zero-carbon housing and other buildings come together with the energy world, which is concerned with microgeneration and local energy systems, so that we join those two important pieces of the puzzle. I assure my hon. Friend that we are doing just that, together with the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Nuclear Decommissioning Authority

Annette Brooke: What the effects of the comprehensive spending review are for funding of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

John Hutton: The comprehensive spending review provided the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority with funding to deliver a full programme of nuclear decommissioning and clean-up, in line with the NDA's strategy and business plans.

Annette Brooke: Does the Secretary of State share my concern about the loss of skilled jobs at Winfrith and other sites commencing in January, and about the deferment of decommissioning, which I believe is at variance with previous plans? At the end of the day, who is accountable and responsible for those actions, particularly if safety were to be compromised?

John Hutton: Ultimately, I am responsible to the House for those matters, and that is how it should be. I am aware of the Winfrith issue. I recently met the chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, and she raised those concerns with me. I am looking into the issues that she and the hon. Lady have raised.

Julie Kirkbride: I warmly welcome the Secretary of State's enthusiasm, if I might call it that, for the new nuclear build programme, but he will perhaps be aware that from the public's perspective, issues surrounding nuclear decommissioning and nuclear waste remain the principal cause for concern about that future new build. Can he offer the House and the public any enlightenment or encouragement that a solution will be found for that difficult issue?

John Hutton: I think that the NDA has made its position clear, and I agree with it that it must prioritise the high safety risks that are part of the legacy of nuclear power in the UK, particularly at Sellafield and Dounreay; that is the right thing to do. I am sure that everyone in the industry, from the head of the NDA right the way through the employment base of nuclear in this country, wants to make sure that we never compromise on safety; so, too, do I.

Regional Economies

Gordon Banks: What steps he is taking to strengthen regional economies.

John Hutton: My Department is investing 2.3 billion this year to strengthen regional economies through the regional development agencies. Since 2002 the less prosperous regions' growth rates have caught up with those of London and the south-east. We are currently consulting business on the details of a new enterprise strategy, which will further address the issue of regional disparities in economic performance.

Gordon Banks: Does my right hon. Friend agree that regional economies can be international drivers? I draw his attention to the Scotch whisky industry. In my constituency, I am lucky to have a cooperage, distilleries, coppersmiths and a blending plant. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the industry provides a real opportunity to blend traditional skills with a modern economic industry, and that those traditional skills are vital to the preservation of a modern economic base?

Nigel Evans: Did you write that question for him, Mr. Speaker?

John Hutton: Given your interest, Mr. Speaker, I obviously need to answer the question in the right way. I am a great fan of blends, so I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks) about the importance of the Scotch whisky industry. It is a significant employer, and there is much technology and innovation in the industry. I can assure him, and the House, that the UK Government are doing all they can on issues such as ensuring that Scotch whisky can be sold freely and fairly around the world, without unnecessary high tariffs. I have just come back from Korea, and I can assure my hon. Friend that I raised that point directly with that country's Trade Minister.

Mark Prisk: Over the last 10 years the Government have talked a great deal about the north-south regional divide, and indeed they have spent some 13 billion through the RDAs, yet the prosperity gap between the regions has widened since 1997, with the north and the midlands falling further behind the national average. Having spent 13 billion in that period, will the Secretary of State explain why the north-south gap in prosperity has actually grown? Is it a deliberate Government policy, or just ministerial incompetence?

John Hutton: The tone of these exchanges has suddenly lowered dramatically. I pointed out [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman wants an answer and I am trying to give it to him. I pointed out to him in my answer the progress that is being made. It is important to remember that the problems that we are discussing did not arise in 1997, and it is worth reminding ourselves [Interruption.] No, these problems go back 80, 90 or 100 years. If we are to succeed in sustaining the progress that we are making, that will call for investment and support for the work of the regional development agencies, which I have never heard a Conservative Member signal since we established the RDAs. One thing that always emerges from our exchanges is the sniff of hypocrisy and humbug. The hon. Gentleman never showed any interest at all

Mr. Speaker: As long as the right hon. Gentleman is describing a party and not an individual Member, I am quite happy with that remark.

John Hutton: Of course I am talking about the Conservative party, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for that helpful clarification. If the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Prisk) had any record to campaign on that would allow us to believe that he was serious in the concerns that he expressed today, we would take him more seriously. Sadly, there is no evidence to support his view.

Joan Humble: Is my right hon. Friend aware that our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government recently announced that she wishes to set up a cross-departmental group to look at the special needs of some of our coastal towns? Will he actively engage in that group so that the economy of a town like Blackpool can be regenerated and help to strengthen the whole of the regional economy?

John Hutton: Yes. I want to praise the work that my hon. Friend does in representing her constituents in the matter. My Department will do all we can to support my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government in the work that she is doing to rejuvenate our coastal towns.

Postal Services

John Baron: If he will make a statement on Government policy on the future of postal services in the UK.

Patrick McFadden: Post Office Ltd has put out to local public consultation its proposals for post office closures and new outreach locations in 10 area plans, including the plan for east Essex and Suffolk, which covers the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The process will continue over the next year or so. It has ended in four areas, including east Essex and Suffolk, and final decisions on the area covering his constituency are planned to be announced next month.

John Baron: The Minister will be aware that profitable post offices in Billericay and Wickford in my constituency are set for closure under the Government's closure programme. Given that the population in that part of the world is expanding, not shrinking, as evidenced by the Boundary Commission creating an extra constituency, and given that the closures will hurt many people, particularly the elderly and the disabled, can the Minister honestly explain to the House why those closures are taking place, in view of the profitability of those post offices and the level of population growth? Will he meet me and other Essex MPs to discuss the matter?

Patrick McFadden: I will happily meet the hon. Gentleman and colleagues, if he wishes. As I explained earlier, the closures are happening because the Post Office is losing several million pounds a week and because several million fewer people are going through the doors of our post offices than was the case a couple of years ago. He mentioned profitable post offices, and there are two factors to remember in that regard. First, there is the amount that will be raised and spent within the post office branch. Secondly, the central support cost from the post office network to post office branches must be taken into account. Calculated in that way, some three out of four sub-post offices around the country are unprofitable to Post Office Ltd. That is why the Government have put forward a subsidy of 150 million a year for the post office network. That is a subsidy that did not exist when the Conservatives were in power.

Celia Barlow: My hon. Friend mentioned the macro-economic factors behind the closure of post offices. However, will he pressurise Post Office managers over the fact that the two post offices in my constituencyTrafalgar Road in Portslade and Richardson Road in Hoveare the centre of tight-knit, old and established shopping areas? Will he meet the local traders, who are filled with alarm at the closures and are worried that they will have an extremely negative effect on their businesses?

Patrick McFadden: I will happily meet my hon. Friend about those issues. However, as I said to the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Baron), the closures are happening because of the declining use of post offices and the losses that post offices are sustaining. The decision was announced some months ago. I understand that it is difficult and unpopular in local communities; it is the kind of difficult decision that parties in government have to take.

Nicholas Winterton: Does the Minister not accept that given that sub-post offices are closing, fewer collections are taking place and morale in the postal services is at an all-time low, the only things that are increasing are the salary and bonus of the chief executive? Bearing in mind that the Government are providing a subsidy to the Post Office, does the Minister not think that we should get rid of Mr. Crozier, who is doing such a bloody awful job?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Remember that some weeks ago I said that we should have temperate language.

Nicholas Winterton: I got a little carried away, Mr. Speaker. I do believe that Mr. Crozier should go, but I withdraw the word bloody.

Patrick McFadden: Right hon. and hon. Members can speak freely, as we have just seen. I do not share the opinion expressed by the hon. Gentleman. The Post Office is a service and business facing a significant challenge and it is having to go through difficult change. That process is difficult to manage and requires the commitment of both the senior management and the excellent people who work in our post offices and for Royal Mail.

Dennis Skinner: Bolsover is in the bottom 50 in terms of deprivation, mainly because of all the pits that were closed under the Tories. But does the Minister accept that when we heard the news that 10 post offices10were going to be closed in Bolsover, that was a real body blow to all the affected communities? Will he therefore speak to people at Bolsover district council, which has launched a campaign against those 10 closures?
	Whatever the Minister does about this Crozier fellow, who I think is a waste of space, he should not send him back to the Football Association.

Patrick McFadden: I have said to other hon. Members that I will meet them, and I am happy to meet my hon. Friend about those issues. I understand that the situation is difficult and that a large number of closures are proposed in his constituency. The issue is difficult for local communities; the closures are happening because of the losses being made across the Post Office network. That is why we have committed to providing a subsidyone that did not exist under the Conservative partyof 150 million a year. In fact, that subsidy is part of a total package of support for the Post Office of 1.7 billion until 2011.

Charles Hendry: Does the Minister understand why communities feel so betrayed at the consultation exercise, which will make no difference whatever to the number of post offices that will be closed? Why has he ordered the Post Office to stop all closure announcements in the run-up to the local elections in May? Is not the decision to change the date for announcing the closure of one in six of the capital's post offices from just three weeks before the mayoral election more connected with saving Ken Livingstone than with genuine consultation? Will Londoners not see the elections as their final chance to have their say on the future of the post offices? What is bad news for the postbox will be bad news for Labour at the ballot box.

Patrick McFadden: The suspension of announcements during local elections is part of the normal purdah procedures that have existed for years in this House and have been observed by Governments of both parties. If it is the opinion of the Conservatives that purdah should be suspended, that would be an interesting constitutional innovation. If that is not their opinion, I suggest that they stop criticising us for applying the normal rules that have applied to Governments of both parties for many years.

Royal Mail (Isle of Mull)

Alan Reid: What assessment he has made of the performance of Royal Mail against national standards for mail delivery, with particular reference to the service on the Isle of Mull; and if he will make a statement.

Patrick McFadden: The responsibility for ensuring that Royal Mail meets its quality of service standards rests with Postcomm, the postal services regulator. I understand from Postcomm that on the Isle of Mull, which is part of the PA postcode district, Royal Mail is required to meet the standard of 91.5 per cent. of first class mail delivered the next day, and that that standard is being met across that postcode district.

Alan Reid: But just last month, Royal Mail stopped sending the mail to Mull on the first ferry of the day. That means that it is being delivered to customers throughout the island two hours later than it has been for many years. The daily newspapers are also affected, meaning that they do not arrive in the shops until about midday. Will the Government, as the owners of Royal Mail, investigate this and demand that Royal Mail give to people on Mull the same service that until last month they had enjoyed for many years?

Patrick McFadden: I am afraid that the issue to which the hon. Gentleman refers is not so much to do with postal services as with European legislation on transport. The reason why this is happening is that new legislation requires that all vehicles weighing more than 7.5 tonnes, including those operated by Royal Mail, must travel at no more than 56 mph. That is the cause. It is not so much to do with Royal Mail as with the speed limits on the trucks that carry the mail.

Topical Questions

Graham Allen: If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

John Hutton: The central purpose of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform is to help to ensure business success in an increasingly competitive world. We promote the creation and growth of business and a strong enterprise economy, lead the better regulation agenda, and champion free and fair markets. We are the shareholder in a number of Government-owned assets, such as Royal Mail, and we work for secure, clean and competitively priced energy supplies.

Graham Allen: I welcome the Secretary of State's written statement this morning on manufacturing. He will know that in Nottingham we have suffered through the closure of the mines and textile industries and the run-down in people's employment at Boots, Players and Raleigh. Will he ensure that manufacturing still stays at the heart of the Government's economic policies? Will he also, linking back to his previous job, ensure that it ties into the welfare-to-work strategies that are now being deployed around the country?

John Hutton: Yes, I will certainly look to do that. It is sometimes worth reminding ourselves about the UK's record in manufacturing. We are the sixth biggest manufacturer in the world and we have the same proportion of gross domestic product in manufacturing as the United States. We should be looking to develop our manufacturing sectors as aggressively and positively as we can. I do not believe the myth that Britain is now living in a post-industrial world; that is completely wrong. We should be supporting our manufacturers in the most effective and intelligent way that we can. I agree too about the importance of manufacturing as regards employment. It is worth reminding ourselves that hundreds of thousands of people work in industrial sectors that did not exist 20 years ago. We have a responsibility, we intend to discharge it, and I look forward to support from my hon. Friend.

Edward Davey: Do the Minister's responsibilities include ensuring that international trade by British companies meets the highest standards? Is he concerned that yesterday Britain was singled out at the international conference on anti-corruption as the one major country that has been backsliding on its international treaty commitments?

John Hutton: I do not know what that conference was, and I reject absolutely any suggestion that the United Kingdom does not take seriously its obligations to tackle corruption. We have an excellent record and I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not going to start undermining it.

Chris McCafferty: What discussions has my right hon. Friend had with Ofcom about the growing, very unethical practice of slammingchanging a subscriber's account from one service provider to another?

John Hutton: I agree with my hon. Friend that that is a serious problem. I understand that Ofcom has taken action against that practice in the fixed telephony market and complaints have started to come down as a result, which is welcome. I will be meeting the head of Ofcom next week and I will relay to him my hon. Friend's concerns, and mine, about that practice.

Alan Duncan: There is growing concern that this rather, I have to say, embarrassingly named Department is beginning to lose its grip. It was we who had to tell people that the Secretary of State's Department had published its mission statement when its own press office did not know anything about it.
	As part of that mission, the Secretary of State is responsible for enterprise. Will he confirm to the House that he was consulted in advance on the Chancellor's new tax on enterprise, and explain what subsequent changes he would now like to make to those proposals?

John Hutton: It is very nice to have the hon. Gentleman's support for what we are trying to do on enterprise, and I welcome that. I hope that he will support the measures we set out in the new year to ensure that we sustain the progress we are making on that. We are closing the gap between ourselves and the United States, and doing better than any other country in the European Union on enterprise, which I know is his particular concern.
	Yes, I was consulted by the Chancellor in advance, and the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to go into the detail of the correspondence and exchange of views that I had with the Chancellor. I support absolutely what he is doing in relation to the simplification of our tax regime and in making sure that Britain's international competitiveness in relation to capital gains tax remains obvious.

Alan Duncan: The right hon. Gentleman should talk to some of his ministerial colleagues, who clearly do not agree with him, including the one who resignedperhaps the only time he said anything constructive about enterprise was when he joined the Conservatives at Oxford. Business start-ups are falling and business support schemes are in disarray. There are continued complaints about UK Trade and Investment, a rising regulatory burden and, I would argue, a sidelined Secretary of State. To which Department should business now turn if it wants to have its interests effectively represented in Whitehall?

John Hutton: The business community welcomed the creation of the Department, and continues to give it strong support. I am grateful to the business community for that. If that really is the best the hon. Gentleman can do after having a whole hour to prepare for his question, he needs to go back and do his homework again.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: The future of manufacturing industry in my constituency is in the high-tech, high-skilled industries. Would my right hon. Friend assure me that he will continue to work with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills to do all we can to support such industries? Does he agree that any proposals to cut the research and development tax credit, as proposed by the Conservatives, would only damage those industries?

John Hutton: We will certainly be doing that, and we have a programme of support for innovation and high technology that is among the best in the world. We certainly will not be taking any advice on tax from the Conservatives.

John Mann: Having paid my car tax from the luxury of my own home on the internet, should I be pleased that I am embracing the new digital era, or worried that I am undermining local post offices?

Patrick McFadden: I think that my hon. Friend is making his own choice, which is an increasingly popular one. Since the service was established, the capacity for people to renew car tax online has become very popular. Last year, it was used by about half a million people every month. The figures for the first half of this year show that that use has increased to about 1 million people per month. Interestingly, almost half of those who use the service do so outside the normal office hours of 9 to 5, which shows the demand for public services outside traditional office hours, and it lays down a challenge for the Government as to how we respond. It is right that the Government offer people the chance to carry out such transactions at a time of their own choosing, and this

Mr. Speaker: Order. Can I stop the Minister now?

Stephen Crabb: Does the Minister agree that as the UK becomes steadily more reliant on imported natural gas, we will need substantially more gas storage facilities to provide a buffer against the risk of supply interruption? If he agrees, how does he think that that strategic storage will be provided? Will it be through the marketplace, through price signals, or will the UK have a stocking obligation imposed on it by the EU?

Hon. Members: What a good question.

Malcolm Wicks: It was a good question. As we move at a relatively rapid rate from being a net exporter of gas to being a major importerby 2020, we could be importing 80 per cent. of our gaswe will need more storage capacity. We recognised that in our White Paper. The new planning Bill will help us realise that aim before too many years have passed. That kind of infrastructure needs speedy implementation. That was an important question, and I believe that we have the answer to it.

Henry Bellingham: The Secretary of State claims to be the champion of wealth creation and initiative, but does he agree that any reward must reflect the risk? Does he feel that it is right that the QinetiQ chairman, the former civil servant Sir John Chisholm, should have netted 22 million from an investment of 129,000? Surely it is less to do with the ratio between risk and reward and more to do with incompetence and sleaze.

John Hutton: If the hon. Gentleman has allegations of sleaze or criminality, he needs to bring them to the appropriate authorities and action will be taken.

Colin Burgon: Although the recent rise in the minimum wage is welcome, is the Minister aware that 24,000 workers in the Yorkshire and Humber region are not paid the minimum wage? Does he agree that we should have an active policy of finding and fining employers who break the law? Can he tell me how many enforcement officers are allocated to the Yorkshire and Humberside region to do that work?

Patrick McFadden: Earlier this year, the Budget announcements contained an increase in the funds available for enforcement of the minimum wage. That will enable HMRC to hire some 20 extra enforcement officers. Over the past year, some 3 million has been recovered for people who should have been paid the minimum wage but were not. That has helped some 14,000 workers. My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue. The minimum wage was legislated for by Parliament for a reason and we want to see it properly enforced.

Anne McIntosh: Given that small sub-post offices in rural areas operate effectively as small businesses and were operating at a profit until the Government removed many services from them, such as the ability to renew TV licences, what reassurance can the Secretary of State give that there will be a profitable, effective rural post office network that does not require people to travel more than three miles from any village?

Patrick McFadden: The hon. Lady referred to the TV licence. That was not the Government's decision, and reflects the competitive environment in which the Post Office now operates. Does she believe that the Government should

Anne McIntosh: I am asking you [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the Minister answer in his own way.

Patrick McFadden: If the hon. Lady believes that the Government should withdraw the means to deal with car tax online, I would have to disagree. We are working closely with Post Office management to develop new services, such as those that they offer on car insurance, foreign currency and broadband. That will ensure that, in future, post offices remain an attractive place where people will go to access services.

Desmond Swayne: Is the Minister aware of the extraordinary situation whereby workers who are here perfectly legally are seeking to persuade employers that they are here illegally so that they can compete on what they regard as the relatively advantageous terms of being able to offer their services at less than the minimum wage?

Patrick McFadden: All workers who are here legally are entitled to the minimum wage. That should be properly enforced, whether the workers come from the UK or not. If people are working here illegally, the hon. Gentleman should report that to the proper authorities.

Sharon Hodgson: Does the Secretary of State accept that there is a growing consensus, especially judging by the recent successful north-east economic forum, that, to encourage further enterprise in the north-east, we must ensure that the region is not isolated from the major north-south and east-west road links, as I am afraid that it currently is?

John Hutton: Obviously, we will work closely with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to ensure that the right economic infrastructure is in place in the north-east to support enterprise and a growing wealth creation economy in the region.

Robert Smith: Earlier, the Minister for Energy talked about the problems of fuel poverty. He mentioned social tariffs, which obviously apply to people on the gas and electricity networks. What assessment has he made of the impact of the dramatic increase in oil prices on those in rural areas who cannot get on to the gas network? What is his strategy for tackling fuel poverty in rural areas that are off the gas main?

Malcolm Wicks: Our strategy, wherever possibleit is not always possible economically is to try to connect more people to the gas grid system. I acknowledge the problem; I think we need renewable technologies in particular to aid some of those often quite poor people. We are keeping the matter under review and I would welcome an opportunity of drawing on the hon. Gentleman's experience.

Katy Clark: The Minister knows that millions have benefited through the national minimum wage regulations. However, many who work on Britain's ferries are currently exempt. Is my hon. Friend willing to meet me and other interested Members of Parliament to discuss that anomaly and whether it is possible to give that sector, too, the benefit of the regulations?

Patrick McFadden: I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend.

Business of the House

Theresa May: May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the forthcoming business?

Harriet Harman: The business for the week commencing 26 November will be
	Monday 26 NovemberSecond Reading of the Health and Social Care Bill.
	Tuesday 27 NovemberSecond Reading of the Housing and Regeneration Bill.
	Wednesday 28 NovemberOpposition Day [2nd Allotted Day]. There will be a debate entitled Prisons Crisis, followed by a debate on the performance of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
	Thursday 29 NovemberTopical debatesubject to be announced, followed by motion to approve a European document relating to asylum, followed by a general debate on the Government consultation on convicting rapists and protecting victims.
	Friday 30 NovemberThe House will not be sitting.
	The provisional business for the week commencing 3 December will include
	Monday 3 DecemberRemaining stages of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Bill.
	I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall in December will be
	Thursday 6 DecemberA debate on the report from the International Development Committee on Department for International Development assistance to Burmese internally displaced people and refugees on the Thai-Burma border.
	Thursday 13 DecemberA debate on the report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights on the treatment on asylum seekers.

Theresa May: I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for giving us the future business.
	This morning, the Secretary of State for Transport made a written statement about the expansion of Heathrow. She was happy to make a statement to business leaders yesterday and to spin it to the Today programme this morning, so why has she not been to the House to make an oral statement? That would enable hon. Members who, like me, have constituency interests, to question her. Every week, the Leader of the House tells us that she puts Parliament first; every week, her colleagues treat Parliament with disdain.
	On Monday, we discovered that the Government have no idea how much taxpayers' money might be paid out after the 24 billion bail-out of Northern Rock. The Chancellor told the Treasury Committee:
	we fully expect to be able to get that money back.
	Now he refuses to say for certain that the money will ever be paid back. There are many questions still to be answered. What is the total Government liability? What arrangements are in place if the Government need a supplementary estimate to cover their liabilities? How are they accounting for the liabilities, and are those liabilities on or off balance sheet? What estimate has been made of the effect on the public sector borrowing requirement? Will the Chancellor make another Northern Rock statement, so that he can answer those questions?
	On Tuesday we discovered that the Government had lost the personal details of 25 million men, women and children. The Prime Minister says that he profoundly regrets what has happened, but that is not much consolation to the millions of families who have been left to follow the Chancellor's advice to check their bank statements. According to a written answer given just three weeks ago, there were 2,111 security breaches by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs last year alone. Reports today suggest that at least two further CDs are missing. How can the Prime Minister deny that the fiasco is anything but the result of systemic failure? Can we therefore have a debate in Government time on the systemic failure in HMRCa department set up by the Prime Minister?
	In his statement on Tuesday, the Chancellor said that the reason why he had not told the House immediately was that he needed to put appropriate safeguards in place. He said that
	the banks were adamant that they wanted as much time as possible to prepare for this announcement.[ Official Report, 20 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 1102.]
	However, the British Bankers Association has said:
	The BBA did not ask for any more time...None of our members asked for any extra time.
	That directly contradicts what the Chancellor told hon. Members. He must come to the House and set the record straight. The Chancellor also said repeatedly that the decisions were taken by junior officials. However, we know that it was a senior business manager who took the decision to put the information on to the discs and that that was done with the knowledge of the director of HMRC, process owner for tax credits and child benefits. Yet another thing that the Chancellor told the House has been contradicted, so will he come to the House to make an urgent statement and tell us the true version of events?
	The Northern Rock fiasco and the HMRC scandal tell us everything that we need to know about the Government: they are incompetent, insincere and in deep trouble. Is it not time that somebody just got a grip?

Harriet Harman: The right hon. Lady raised the matter of Heathrow. The point is that there is a process of consultation. If she wants to put her views into the consultation on behalf of her constituents, I suggest that she do so. A written ministerial statement has been made to the House on the subject of the consultation. When conclusions are reached as a result of hearing from all those who put in their views to the consultation, including hon. Members, and when there are firm proposals for action, no doubt the Secretary of State for Transport will bring those matters to the House. Hon. Members will know the difference between launching a consultation and having firm proposals. When there are firm proposals, they must be brought to the House for announcement.
	The right hon. Lady made a number of points about Northern Rock and about Revenue and Customs. Of course, when sudden problems arise the duty of the Government is clear. First, it is to ensure that individuals are protected from any personal damage or any potential problems. Secondly, our duty is to ensure that there is an investigation to discover what actually happened and why. I do not intend to pre-empt any of those investigations by answering the questions that are subject to them. Thirdly, it is our duty to take steps to ensure that those problems do not happen again. That is the duty of the Government, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is doing exactly that.

John Battle: I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend and other Members will agree that, since last week's business questions, we have had a hectic week. As far as I am aware, however, in the space of that week, no one has lost their home or their savings from Northern Rock, and the banks have guaranteed that anyone who has a bank account will be protected against computer fraud. In the meantime, more than 3 million people have lost their homes [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Ellwood, you should not be shouting. You are usually a very quiet Member, and I do not expect this from you.

John Battle: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the meantime, last week, more than 3,000 people have lost their lives and more than 3 million have lost their homes, livelihoods and families. Can we therefore have a debate on Bangladesh, and give some support to the emergency aid programme in the next week?

Harriet Harman: In response to my right hon. Friend's point, I reiterate that the first duty of the Government is to ensure that people are protected from actual or potential damage, and that is what the Chancellor is doing. My right hon. Friend mentioned the cyclone in Bangladesh. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has issued a written ministerial statement on that subject. It is a matter of great concern, and I am sure that he will report back to the House on it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (John Battle) might also wish to propose the matter as the subject for a topical debate.

Simon Hughes: Given that the biggest domestic issue has been the failure of the Government to ensure that one of their agencies looked after a huge amount of personal information, will the Leader of the House accept a formal request on behalf of my colleagues and myself for next Thursday's topical debate to be on the subject of the failure of the Government to protect data across the Government and all their agencies? Will she also ensure that Ministers come to the House to explain their accountability for the failures of civil servants in Government Departments and agencies?
	When we have had that debate, will the Leader of the House ensure that we have a debate in Government time on the Floor of the House on the implications of this week's serious news for the debate that the Government want us to have on the implementation of identity cards? That proposal must be called into question by the failures of this week, and we need to assess the stupidity of the proposal early, so that we do not waste any more public money by going down that completely unhelpful road.
	Yesterday, Ministers joined the Director of Public Prosecutions in saying that they were opposed to an increase in the 28-day limit on detention. May we have an early opportunity to question Ministers on the state of the Government's negotiations on any change in the balance between liberty and security that would put the traditional liberties of the British people at risk?
	The Government were represented yesterday by a very junior MinisterI am not being disrespectfulat what was meant to be a high-level conference in Rome to mark the 10th anniversary of the international anti-bribery convention. Will Ministers come to the House to explain what the benefit or disbenefit has been to this country of the decision not to continue the investigation into alleged corruption between BAE Systems and the Saudi Government, while we are trying to persuade other countries around the world to adopt strong anti-corruption regimes?
	Mr. Speaker, you were kind enough to allow me to withdraw my debate on Sri Lanka for family reasons last week. However, the Commonwealth conference is taking place this week, and there are clearly important issues to be discussed, including Pakistan and the terrible civil war in Sri Lanka. Can we be assured that the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister will make a statement on the Commonwealth conference, to allow us to ask questions about those two very troubled parts of the Commonwealth, which are a matter of great concern to people in this country?

Harriet Harman: As the Prime Minister reminded the House yesterday, 22 of the 25 European countries have ID cards. One of the best ways of protecting against identity fraud is secure, checkable identity verification via biometric data, and that is what ID cards would provide. The hon. Gentleman will be able to raise the issue in Home Office questions next Monday.
	The hon. Gentleman suggested a subject for a topical debate next week. I shall accept that as a representation. He also raised the question of the 28 days' detention, and the Government's discussion of whether the period should be extended. He will be able to raise that issue during Monday's Home Office questions as well. However, I remind him that if we are advised by the head of the Association of Chief Police Officers, by the Government's independent reviewer Lord Carlile and by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner that there is a case for extension, and if we can be satisfied that there are sufficient safeguards, it will be right for us proceed. I hope that we shall be able to reach all-party agreement. Perhaps the House recalls that although the Conservative party wants to abolish it, we introduced the Human Rights Act 1998 to ensure that whatever proposals the House may come up with, people's human rights and civil liberties are protected.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about BAE Systems and the investigation by the Serious Fraud Office. On numerous occasions the House has been given information about the cessation of one particular inquiry in that respect.
	No doubt the Foreign Secretary will make a report following the Commonwealth conference.
	Finally, may I express my condolences to the hon. Gentleman for the loss of his mother?

Laura Moffatt: Will my right hon. and learned Friend find time for a wider debate on aviation? At present the focus is on airports that may be expanding. Will she ensure that we can consider airports such as Gatwick, which play an important role in our airport network and supply many good jobs for people, to ensure that they do not shrink in the light of the expansion of other airports?

Harriet Harman: I shall take that as a suggestion for a topical debate on an issue that is important in relation to transport issues, jobs and the environment.

Peter Tapsell: As the next statement is to be on pandemic influenza, may we be reassured that the Government will not be announcing that they have mislaid their stockpile of Tamiflu?

Harriet Harman: If the hon. Gentleman has a question in respect of the next statement, I suggest that he wait until the next statement to ask it.

Gordon Prentice: There is a convention that the Government respond to Select Committee reports within two months. The Public Administration Committee recently had to wait 16 months for a Government response, and it is quite common for responses to be received after more than two months. In the circumstances, can it be a matter of policy to timetable debates on Select Committee reports when the Government have not responded?

Harriet Harman: Obviously it is important for Departments to respond promptly to departmental Select Committee reports. I shall take my hon. Friend's question as a prompt for me to check the state of play on all the outstanding Select Committee reports that have yet to receive a Government response. The question of which reports are debated is also important, and I shall look into that as well.

Oliver Letwin: While the Leader of the House is considering questions of data management, may I request a debate on one aspect of data, namely the Government's awareness of where local elections are taking place? A postmaster in my constituency reports that she has received a letter saying that she cannot be told when her post office will beor may beclosed because of forthcoming local elections and political sensitivity. However, we shall not be having any local elections in West Dorset in the coming year.

Harriet Harman: I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber at the time, but this matter was raised earlier today in questions to my ministerial colleagues in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, and the House was reminded that the usual rules are being applied. I will look into the particular point that he raises.

Fraser Kemp: While the Government were absolutely right to apologise unreservedly for the loss of data records at the child benefit centre, does the Leader of the House agree that this issue should not be used as an opportunity to condemn all staff who work at the centre, and who deliver year in and year out an important and much-needed benefit to millions of families? Will she provide an opportunity for the support of staff to be included in any reviews that are conducted?

Harriet Harman: I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point about the work of some of his constituents, and I will draw it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. Obviously, lessons have to be learned, but we also recognise that Revenue and Customs employees are getting on with the important work of paying out child benefits and tax credits, which are vital to millions of families. Under this Government, child benefit has increased by more than 50 per cent.

Ben Wallace: The ward of Norcross in my constituency hosts the Department for Work and Pensions computer databases and the Ministry of Defence pensions databases. Will the Leader of the House find time next week for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to make a statement giving assurances that none of the data from those databases has been leaked? It is important that we know why information has gone astray, and whether the Government have got a grip on the situation across Whitehall.

Harriet Harman: Members will know that, together with the Information Commissioner, Mark Walport is looking into the question of data security in both the public and the private sector. No doubt a report will be brought before this House at the appropriate time, when further questions can be asked.

Ann Cryer: Will it be possible to have a debate next week on the non-implementation of low pay legislation provisions in respect of home workers? Yesterday, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Mr. Hamilton) met a number of home workersall of them women, and many of them Asian womenwho are clearly not being dealt with in a fair manner by their so-called employers. I strongly feel that this matter ought to be looked at. The employers are dodging minimum pay legislation by saying that the women are self-employed; they are not.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Despite the extra protection this Government have introduced for people at workin particular, vulnerable employeesthere is still exploitation. A forthcoming Bill will seek to address that, and my hon. Friend can raise such points in discussions on it.

Mark Hunter: Eighty-five per cent. of dentists surveyed by the British Dental Association say they do not believe that the new dental contract offers sufficient access to care, and 95 per cent. say they have less confidence now than two years ago in the future of NHS dentistry. Will the Leader of the House secure an early debate on the future of NHS dentistry?

Harriet Harman: The Government remain very concerned to increase access to, and the quality of, dental services. The hon. Gentleman might consider applying for an Adjournment debate in this Chamber on the matter, or a Westminster Hall debate.

Dari Taylor: Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept that the prime concern of all us in Britain today should be British manufacturing? It is a wealth-creating sector that provides good employment, and its products are value-added. The House should be discussing how we can support the sector in order to minimise risk. The investment required is colossal and the profit from it comes slowly. We need to look into this issue and ensure that Government policies on research and development and product development and innovation do not have a disincentivising effect in the sector, which accounts for 30 per cent. of the north-east's GDP.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend makes an important point on manufacturing, which some Members also emphatically made in this morning's questions to Ministers in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, who expressed their total commitment to British manufacturing and the future of manufacturing in this country. I will draw my hon. Friend's points to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families as he takes forward the diploma programme so that we make sure that the country has the skills to underpin our manufacturing industry, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, because of the important apprenticeship programme. Not only are the Government well aware of the importance of manufacturing, but we are doing everything we can to underpin its success in the future.

Justine Greening: May we have an urgent statement from the Secretary of State for Transport on Heathrow expansion? My constituents have no information in the consultation document launched today that they trust, on which to base their decisions on what to say in response to that consultation. I have been trying for five months to get hold of the detailed environmental analysis that BAA has had and that the Department for Transport has been modelling to. Why are the Government unwilling to be accountable in any way whatsoever to the people whom they exist to serve?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friends are reminding me that there will be a Westminster Hall debate on Heathrow next week, which the hon. Lady could no doubt contribute to. Since she has taken the opportunity of[Hon. Members: It is half an hour.] Okay, sorry about that; the hon. Lady might apply for a Westminster Hall debate on Heathrow. Nevertheless, since she has taken the opportunity to ask me a question this week, perhaps I can remind her of a question she asked me last week, on which she challenged me and said that I had given the wrong answer in respect of police numbers in her constituency. I have checked the numbers, and I gave the right answer.

John Smith: May I draw my right hon. and learned Friend's attention to an all-party thrombosis group report published on Monday that showed that fewer than a third of acute hospitals in England undertake a mandatory risk assessment of patients for venous thromboembolismVTE? As more than seven months have passed since the chief medical officer recommended universal mandatory assessments, and since as many as 11,000 patients might have died from this hospital-acquired disease, will she find time for a debate on the subject?

Harriet Harman: I will draw my hon. Friend's points to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. It is important that we do all we can to prevent thrombosis and to improve the treatment for it, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work of his all-party group.

Richard Benyon: Will the Leader of the House encourage the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to come before the House and explain how he is unravelling the Prime Minister's bizarre decision to disband the Defence Export Services Organisation and to put some rump of it in UK Trade and Investment, which is in his Department?

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman's colleague, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell), was a bit premature in asking me a question about the statement that is about to be made, but the hon. Gentleman's question is a bit late, as the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform was in the House standing at the Dispatch Box a few minutes ago to answer topical questions. Let me make a suggestion: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has sought to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, but I would say that this is an important issue for topical questions.

Dawn Butler: My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware that we are approaching the end of the bicentenary of the legislation on the abolition of the slave trade, and there has been plenty of talk in the House about having an annual remembrance day for slavery, in line with the holocaust memorial day. Will she inform the House whether there is need for further debate, or are we in agreement that that should take place?

Harriet Harman: I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point. Obviously, I am pleased that the slavery question and understanding its history is now part of the national curriculum. Whether to have a memorial day is under consideration, and rightly so.

Edward Leigh: It is perfectly proper to have an inquiry into the breach of security at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, but surely that should not be an excuse to avoid parliamentary accountability. I hope that the Leader of the House will agree to hold a topical debate next week, not least because the Public Accounts Committee has been informed that rather than this just being about a junior clerk putting the wrong disc in the wrong envelope, it went up, or was copied through, to assistant secretary levelwe have been given the name of the official. Parliament should know about this. What is more topical than 25 million people's personal bank details going out into the ether?

Harriet Harman: It is important that this House has the correct and full information, and the Chancellor will, at all stages, be concerned to provide that. Sometimes there will be conflicting information about what happened. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, will agree that we want full, reliable information, and not speculation.

Jim Sheridan: May we have a debate on the ever-increasing problem of human trafficking into this country? Young women in particular are encouraged to come to this country under the pretence of legitimate employment, only to find themselves locked into prostitution, drugs and crime. Perhaps we can follow the Swedish Government's example of focusing on reducing demand for prostitution rather than on criminalising vulnerable young women.

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend raises an important point about the demand side of human trafficking. I met the Newspaper Society recently to discuss the problem of local newspapers advertising foreign women in their classified ads and the concern that such newspapers might unwittingly be advertising women who have been abducted and trafficked for sexual purposes. It will report back to me on the action that will be taken. My hon. Friend will also know that we need to work with our counterparts in the European Union on this, and that Ministers are doing so.

Edward Davey: Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on how we can support primary care trusts such as Kingston PCT that are struggling with large historical debts when, as we have heard today, the national health service as a whole is recording a large surplus? How can it make sense for the health service in some parts of the country to experience painful cuts when relatively small one-off debt write-offs, or even a minor rescheduling of debt repayments, can be easily afforded?

Harriet Harman: I will bring the hon. Gentleman's points to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, who will doubtless take the opportunity to remind him that the financial resources available in both primary and hospital care in Kingston have hugely increased since 1997 to ensure that his constituents, like all others, receive constantly improving health services. He will be able to table a written question on this, should he choose to do so.

Nia Griffith: What progress is being made on the review of European scrutiny?

Harriet Harman: The Deputy Leader of the House is consulting the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee about how we can improve this House's scrutiny of European matters. As my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) will know, we agreed to bring new proposals on how to scrutinise European legislation more effectively to the House before 24 January. Any hon. Member who wants to contribute to those proposals should take the opportunity to raise this with the Deputy Leader of the House.

Robert Goodwill: At 10 am, I attended a conference at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre across the road, at which the Minister with responsibility for road safety, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), gave an excellent speech on road safety. At the end of it, he apologised for his having to leave because of the important announcement on Heathrow. Why is it an important announcement on Radio 4 and on the other side of the road, yet does not even warrant a junior Minister giving a statement to this House?

Harriet Harman: Perhaps I should remind the hon. Gentleman and the House that the announcement is of a consultation. Ministers are concerned to ensure that everybody knows that a consultation to which they can contribute is taking place. That is doubtless what the Under-Secretary of State for Transport was talking about. The hon. Gentleman, like other hon. Members, will be able to contribute to the consultation. If firm proposals arise from it, they will be brought to this House and not trailed on the Today programme.

Betty Williams: In view of the serious implications and damage to every Member of this House, may we have an early opportunity to debate the report of the House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges, HC94, which upheld the complaints against the hon. Members for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd), for Carmarthen, East and Dinefwr (Adam Price) and for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams)? I informed them last night by letter that I was going to raise this matter today.

Harriet Harman: I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. It is important that Members of this House keep in touch with constituents not only at election time, but all the time. The communication allowance is provided for that purpose. The Committee on Standards and Privileges rightly takes abuse of the allowance seriously, because it brings our honest use of it, and the reputation of the House, into disrepute.

George Young: Further to the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr. Goodwill), surely the consultation exercise on the expansion of this country's largest airport should begin with a statement in the House of Commons, as has happened with other Government consultation exercises. Is there any reason why the Secretary of State for Transport should not come to the House on Monday to make an oral statement?

Harriet Harman: I shall draw that point to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.

David Taylor: Early-day motions 241 to 244 inclusive and 247 to 255 inclusive salute the bravery of Britain's military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and record with sadness those who have been killed in those conflicts.
	 [ That this House salutes the bravery of the armed forces serving in Afghanistan and records with sorrow the deaths of Lance Corporal Jake Alderton of 36 Engineer Regiment, Major Alexis Roberts, 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, aged 32 from Kent, Colour Sergeant Phillip Newman, 4th Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 36, Private Brian Tunnicliffe, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment (Worcesters and Foresters), aged 33 from Ilkeston, Corporal Ivano Violino from 36 Engineer Regiment, aged 29 from Salford, Sergeant Craig Brelsford, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 25 from Nottingham, Private Johan Botha, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment from South Africa, Private Damian Wright, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 23 from Mansfield, Private Ben Ford, 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment, aged 18 from Chesterfield, Senior Aircraftman Christopher Bridge from C flight, 51 Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment, aged 20, from Sheffield, Private Aaron James McClure, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 19 from Ipswich, Private Robert Graham Foster, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 19 from Harlow, Private John Thrumble, 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 21 from Chelmsford, Captain David Hicks of 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 26 from Surrey, Private Tony Rawson of 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, aged 27 from Dagenham, Essex, Lance Corporal Michael Jones, Royal Marines aged 26 from Newbald, Yorkshire, Sergeant Barry Keen of 14 Signal Regiment, aged 34 from Gateshead and Guardsman David Atherton from the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, aged 25 from Manchester.]
	May we have an early debate on the  Daily Mirror campaign that seeks to provide a medal to all who are killed or seriously injured in military conflict on behalf of this country?
	I also raise that issue because I would like the House to pass on our good wishes to the tabler of the early-day motions, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn). He was taken seriously ill in the Palace of Westminster a night or two ago. May we express to him our wish to see him restored to good health and back here very early so that the House can benefit from his characteristic bravery, persistence and independence, which underpin his tireless campaigning in this place?

Harriet Harman: I endorse my hon. Friend's comments. I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Paul Flynn) well and I hope that he makes a speedy return to this House. I join my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) in paying tribute to all our armed services who bravely put their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan. As he will knowthe Prime Minister has spoken about this in the Housethe question of recognition and the awarding of medals falls to the armed services, and they make proposals to the Ministry of Defence. Any action will then be reported to this House.

Julian Brazier: The Leader of the House referred to a question from last week. Will she let us know next week whether she can find a single example of a major consultation on something of the importance of Heathrow airport being announced by any previous Government without an oral statement being made to this House?

Harriet Harman: I am keeping a count on this; I do not want to encourage any other hon. Members to raise the same point, but I recognise the strength of feeling in the House this morning and will take the matter up with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport. If any other hon. Member is thinking of raising this, they need not do so because I have got the point.

Nicholas Winterton: The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, attended a meeting of the all-party human rights group and the all-party Zimbabwe group earlier this week to discuss the brutality, starvation and total lack of democracy in that country. As the previous Leader of the House, now Secretary of State for Justice, promised a debate in Government time on the Floor of the House on the subject, will the Leader of the House now provide time for that debate, perhaps as a topical debate, in the very near future?

Harriet Harman: I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman and I recognise his tireless raising of the important issue of Zimbabwe. We had a debate in the summer, but matters have not improved since. I will take his suggestion for a topical debate, but he will know that the issue is high on the agenda of Foreign Office Ministers and of the Prime Minister as he attends the Commonwealth summit.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will call the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby) if he can assure me that he was in his place for the business statement.

Peter Soulsby: I was indeed, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the House will be aware, from Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform questions, of the widespread concern about the closure of post offices, not only in rural areas but in urban areas such as my constituency. The post offices in Francis street and Walnut street are a vital part of their communities and provide valuable services. May we have a debate in Government time on the value of post offices to rural and urban communities?

Harriet Harman: My hon. Friend will know that the future of post offices was raised this morning in Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform questions. I will take his suggestion as a proposal for a topical debate, and I will consider what we can do to ensure that the House has full discussions on the issue of post offices, which areas he saysimportant not only to Members who represent rural constituencies but to those who represent urban areas.

Greg Clark: Will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster come to the House to make a statement? One of his responsibilities is the Central Sponsor for Information Assurance, which is a team in the Cabinet Office. When the Cabinet Office commissioned an expert report on information security in July, the conclusion was that
	adequate mechanisms are not yet in place.
	Will the Chancellor come to the House to tell us why he failed to act on the recommendations of that report?

Harriet Harman: I am sure that on many future occasions, in statements, oral questions and topical debates, consideration will given to the issue of data security. As I have said, in response to the immediate issue of HMRC, the Government's first concern must be to ensure that people are protected from potential damage. We must understand the facts and why the problem arose, and take action to avoid any repetition.

John Randall: I am afraid that the Leader of the House has not convinced me that it is common practice for Ministers to fail to make an oral statement on consultations. Perhaps she can confirm that the Secretary of State for Transport has not come to the House because thousands of homes will be destroyed and villages wiped off the map as a result of the consultation. Can the Leader of the House confirm whether any Minister has failed to come to the House when launching such a consultation in the past few years?

Harriet Harman: Perhaps the best approach is not only [ Interruption. ] I do not seek to make excuses. The best approach is not always to look at how things have been done in the pastalthough it is important to be aware of thatbut to identify the feelings and concerns of Members and whether they want an early opportunity to debate an issue. As I have said, I get the point on this issue.

John Baron: Will the Leader of the House reconsider her decision not to grant a topical debate on the loss of data by the Government? I suggest that little is more topical than the loss of the personal details of 25 million people, especially given the concern it has caused in our constituencies.

Harriet Harman: I have invited all hon. Members to submit their proposals for topical debate subjects. I intend to announce the issue for debate on Monday evening so that hon. Members notice may make plans to attend and participate in the debate. The earlier I make the announcement, the less topical it is likely to be if some intervening issue arises. We will have to keep an eye on the issue and work out whether we should sacrifice giving notice to Members, and Ministers, in order to ensure hot topicality [ Interruption. ] We will have to decide whether to have override arrangements so that the subject can be changed at the last minute. We want to ensure that the House has an opportunity to discuss topical issues. That is what the topical debate is for, and I intend to make it work as well as possible for the House.

John Redwood: When will the House be asked to approve the 25 billion so far spent on Northern Rock and the 25 billion of contingent guarantees? Where did the Treasury and the Bank of England suddenly find 25 billion?

Harriet Harman: The right hon. Gentleman will know that he can raise those issues at Treasury questions next Thursday. No doubt the Chancellor and his ministerial colleagues will remind him that we are concerned to ensure that no Northern Rock shareholder, employee or saver loses out. The Chancellor has made statements to the House on the issue and, if there is any further information to give, he will do so again.

Andrew MacKay: I return to the debacle at HMRC. The Chancellor of the Exchequer rightly promised that he would return to the House and update us. In the light of the National Audit Office telling us that it was a senior member of staff at director level who allowed the awful problem to ariserather than a junior member of staff, as suggested by the Chancellor on Tuesday and the Prime Minister yesterdaywill the Chancellor come to the House on Monday and give us an update?

Harriet Harman: Who told what to whom and when they told them will be the subject of Kieran Poynter's review, which will be carried out expeditiously. The House will want to proceed on the basis of knowing the facts as fully as possible, not by adding speculation to speculation. This is a serious issue and we need to know the full facts. Above all, we want to ensure that nobody loses out as a result.

Philip Davies: In the statement that the Chancellor made about the farce at HMRC, no mention was made of child protection. Millions of families will be worried that the details of their children's names, addresses and dates of birth could have fallen into the wrong hands. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Home Secretary comes to the House to make a statement on what assessment has been made of the risk to children from the shambles and what measures have been taken to ensure that no children are put at risk?

Harriet Harman: As I have said, the Chancellor of the Exchequer came to the House on Tuesday to make a statement. When a sudden problem arises the foremost duty of the Government is to protect any individual from possible harm. That is the foremost priority of the Government and the Chancellor.

Several hon. Members: rose

Mr. Speaker: Order. Four Back Benchers are on their feetI see that Mr. Wiggin has now jumped upand they may ask one supplementary question each.

Graham Stuart: Since the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry ordered the closure of at least 2,500 post offices in May, the details of which post offices are targeted have been published. There is cross-party concern, as we have seen today, about the impact of that closure programme introduced by the Government and ordered on the Post Office's much-maligned chief executive. May we have an urgent debate so that we can discuss the impact on areas such as Grovehill road in Beverley, which serves the lowest-income side of, Beverley and is a very busy post office?

Harriet Harman: I was thinking of suggesting that I could consider that for a topical debate on Thursday, but next Thursday there is a Westminster Hall debate on post offices. One of the criteria for granting a topical debate is that the House does not otherwise have an opportunity to discuss a subject. As the House will have an opportunity to discuss post offices in Westminster Hall, that is the answer to the question. I recognise that hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned about the future of post offices and I will reflect on whether adequate time across the piece is being given to this important issue.

Nigel Evans: I am the chairman of the ID fraud group in the House of Commons. The loss of the two discs containing the national insurance numbers and bank details of 25 million people is important. We know that ID fraudsters can sit on information for many months and sometimes a year or so before using it. Will the Leader of the House persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to come to the House on Monday so that we can further question him, particularly on the advice being given to the 25 million people about what precautions they should take to protect themselves?

Harriet Harman: It was for the reason that the hon. Gentleman mentions that the Chancellor explained to the House that the ongoing search for the two CDs was important. The Prime Minister said that Revenue and Customs is writing to everyone to explain the situation and the precautions that they might take if they are concerned. If there is any further information, no doubt the Chancellor will come to the House with it.

Peter Bone: The Leader of the House will readily acknowledge that this morning millions of people are in despair. Will she arrange a debate on the crisis in English football?

Harriet Harman: We are all disappointed that none of the home sides has qualified. Some people are feeling beyond disappointment and are downright angry. Questions about football, and particularly about the football coach, are not for the Government primarily, but for football authorities.

Philip Hollobone: In November 2005 Jessica Randall was murdered by her father Andrew Randall, who lived in Kettering. She was just seven weeks old and she had been sexually abused and tortured before being killed. Her father has been sentenced to life in prison. A year ago the local safeguarding children board set up an investigation into the death and promised to publish its report. A year on, local people are still waiting for it. May we have a statement from the appropriate Minister next week, announcing new guidelines to local safeguarding children boards that such inquiries should be published with all possible speed and certainly should not take longer than 12 months?

Harriet Harman: I will bring that point to the attention of ministerial colleagues and suggest that the relevant Ministerthis is a cross-ministerial issuewrite to the hon. Gentleman and place a copy in the Library of the House.

Pandemic Influenza

Alan Johnson: With permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the publication of the national framework for responding to an influenza pandemic and to provide the House with an update on the progress we have made to improve the UK's ability to respond to a pandemic. I will cover overall public health strategy and our approach to the use of clinical countermeasures, such as antivirals and antibiotics.
	Influenza pandemics occurred every 30 to 40 years in the previous century. The last pandemic, in 1968-69, resulted in 80,000 additional deaths in the UK. The possibility of a new pandemic is one of the most severe risks currently facing the UK. Our planning assumptions are that 25 to 50 per cent. of the population may become ill and that, in accordance with previous analysis, between 0.4 per cent. and 2.5 per cent. of those affected could die.
	So that the country will be prepared for the next pandemic, whenever it occurs, I am today publishing a new national framework. It builds upon and supersedes the UK influenza pandemic contingency plan published in October 2005, expanding it to cover a more comprehensive range of impacts and responses.
	The draft national framework was issued for public discussion in March. This final version reflects a number of issues raised during the period for public discussion and takes account of the practical lessons identified from the national simulation exercise for an outbreak of pandemic flu, Operation Winter Willow, which took place earlier this year.
	So that we are as prepared as possible, the framework suggests that more emphasis needs to be placed on planning at the upper ends of possible clinical attack and complication rates. Although the pandemics during the last century resulted in attack rates at or around 25 per cent., it is important that we consider a higher reasonable worst case scenario to ensure that our arrangements are robust and resilient.
	The framework also includes the planning assumptions that describe the Government's likely position on such issues as school closures, and advice on social gatherings and the use of public places. The national framework will help organisations across government and in the private and public sectors to work together to prepare pandemic plans that can cope with a reasonable worst case scenario.
	The framework is supported by a range of guidance. We are publishing an ethical framework for policy and planning, guidance on the provision of health care in a community setting and guidance to assist acute hospitals, social care services and ambulance services in their planning. We are also issuing for public discussion draft guidance on the following: death and cremation certification, proposing legal and other changes in the event of a pandemic; mental health services, assisting mental health trusts in developing their plans; surge capacity, managing the prioritisation of health services and patients at the peak of any pandemic; and NHS human resources guidance, dealing with the work force issues that may arise.
	We are also launching a consultation on possible amendments to medicines and related legislation for use during an influenza pandemic. These aim to support the mass distribution of medicines and the maintenance of access to routine medicines at a time when front-line health care professionals will be focused on the most seriously ill. I have allocated additional funding of 10 million this year to assist the NHS in developing these plans. I expect every NHS organisation to have robust plans in place.
	In the event of a pandemic there will naturally be a great deal of public concern. Our planning assumption is that we will rely on voluntary compliance with national advice during that period. However, should it be necessary to invoke emergency measures, we are taking public health powers in the forthcoming Health and Social Care Bill that could be considered in the event of a pandemic.
	The development of the national framework and our response to pandemic influenza is grounded in the most up-to-date scientific evidence. The Department of Health's scientific advisory group on pandemic influenza takes into account evidence from the UK and across the world. Under its auspices, independently peer-reviewed scientific papers were published in August 2007, dealing with the clinical countermeasures and the risk of a pandemic originating from an H5N1 virus.
	It is clear from the science that good basic hygiene measures must be at the heart of our response. Using a tissue when coughing and sneezing, disposing of it carefully and washing hands often will reduce the spread of influenza, as well as of common coughs and colds. The latest public health campaign, Catch, it, Bin it, Kill it, is being launched to raise awareness of the importance of good respiratory and hand hygiene. It builds on the success of earlier campaigns.
	Science has also informed our strategic approach towards stockpiling the clinical countermeasures we will need to fight a pandemic. The countermeasures will enable us to treat the symptoms of pandemic influenza, to reduce the number of complications and deaths and to reduce the spread of the virus.
	To make sure that the UK has access to a pandemic vaccine I have signed advance supply agreements with GlaxoSmithKline and Baxter to deliver enough vaccine to cover the entire population. It should be the most effective vaccine against the pandemic virus. Those agreements mean that we are among the first countries to have contracts in place, and we will have a guaranteed supply of vaccine at a time when there will be significant international demand. Delivery of the vaccine is not immediate, however, as it can take a few months to develop an effective vaccine once the virus causing pandemic flu has been identified. It is important, therefore, that we obtain additional countermeasures.
	Antiviral medicines are key to our response. If they are administered quickly to all patients with symptoms, they can reduce the duration of the disease and the risk of complications. To make sure that the UK has enough of the most common antiviral, Tamiflu, we have created a stockpile to treat a quarter of the population, assuming the rate of clinical attack seen in previous pandemics and putting us on a par with measures taken in countries such as Germany and the US.
	I can tell the House today that the Government are planning to double the stock of antivirals, to cover at least half the population. We will continue to keep the level of stock under review in light of the scientific evidence, as we develop our business case.
	The World Health Organisation has recommended that, in the event of a pandemic, antibiotics will be needed to prevent and treat the secondary bacterial infections that are likely to be the main cause of complications and deaths. Recommendations for the use of antibiotics are included in clinical management guidelines published recently by two medical journals,  Thorax and the  Journal of Infection.
	The Government plan to procure 14.7 million treatment courses of antibiotics to treat and prevent the complications arising from pandemic flu. That stockpile will enable us to give antibiotics to vulnerable symptomatic flu patients, such as those with chronic conditions and the elderly, in advance of the development of secondary complications, and to treat others in the community if they develop complications. The antibiotics will also be used in hospitals to treat the sickest patients and may reduce the length of hospitalisation. The procurement of both antivirals and antibiotics will be subject to emerging scientific evidence and to normal commercial procurement procedures to ensure that we purchase those products at the best price, and achieve value for money for the taxpayer.
	Maintaining the resilience of the NHS and social care will be critical. We must ensure that essential NHS and social care workers on the front line, caring for people with influenza, are protected. The World Health Organisation advises that health workers should wear face masks when caring for patients with influenza and use disposable respirators when carrying out clinical procedures likely to generate fine droplets from infected patients. The Government plan to purchase about 34 million disposable respirators and about 350 million surgical face masks for the use of health and social care workers in the event of a pandemic.
	Although the available medical evidence does not support the use of face masks in all settings, I recognise that people may want to have access to face masks for their personal use. The Government will explore the approach that retailers are planning to adopt when stocking face masks for sale to the public.
	Pre-pandemic vaccine is the only clinical countermeasure that can be used before the onset of the pandemic, but its success will depend on how much protection it gives against the actual pandemic virus, which is, of course, unknown until it strikes. The Government have a stockpile of 3.3 million doses of H5N1 pre-pandemic vaccine for health care workers. Its purchase in 2006 was an important step, designed primarily to support the health care response to the pandemic. The science underpinning the further development and potential use of pre-pandemic vaccine is cutting-edge and has just been reviewed by UK and international experts. We are actively considering their findings, and the implications for our policy, to inform future decisions, and I will update the House on any developments.
	The preparedness strategy for pandemic influenza represents a significant investment. In assessing the options, we will ensure that value for money is balanced with the need to be certain that the UK is properly prepared. The significant progress we have made in protecting the UK has been recognised internationally, and we continue to work closely with the World Health Organisation. Dr. David Heymann, the assistant director general for health security and environment at the WHO, said this week:
	The UK is still in the vanguard of countries worldwide in preparing for a pandemic, and is also one of the leading global players in addressing the cross-sectoral issues in their planning.
	I can also announce that we have pledged a further 2 million to support the global pandemic influenza action plan to increase vaccine supply to help develop capacity to secure vaccine supplies for the developing world.
	Today's publication of the national framework and the ongoing work to develop our preparedness strategy reflect the importance the Government attach to responding to the risk of an influenza pandemic for the UK. This is not an issue for partisan politics, and I am grateful for the constructive engagement of the hon. Members for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) and for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). To that end, I will arrange for them to meet the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo), and key officials to discuss our plans in more detail.
	I commend the statement to the House.

Andrew Lansley: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for advance notice of the statement and for the opportunity briefly to look at the national framework document published today. Although originally Ministers said that it would be published last January, I welcome its publication and the further measures that the Secretary of State announced, including the acquisition of a stockpile of face masks. He will recall that it is just over two years since we first asked his predecessor to do that. It has taken that long, but we hope the stockpile will be in place before any threatened pandemic eventuates.
	I welcome, too, the Secretary of State's announcement of 10 million for additional support for NHS planning. It is important that the work be done, and at present primary care trusts cannot allocate additional resources for it. The 2 million for the World Health Organisation is also welcome.
	On finance, the Scottish Executive made it clear in a recent document that this year they expect to spend 5 million on pandemic preparations. From that, I deduce that the Secretary of State in England is probably expecting to spend about 50 million this year. Will he confirm that?
	I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks about the constructive engagement that began under his predecessor. I look forward to further discussions. He has responded today to some of the concerns I raised in our correspondence and I am grateful for that. None the less, I have a few specific questions.
	The Secretary of State made it clear that he is responding to scientific advice from the Department's scientific advisory group. He will be aware that the group looked at one model whose effect would have been such that even if one of the component interventions was ineffective it would none the less be possible to meet the targeted strategy, but the group noted that
	the impact of this combination is such that only localised outbreaks of seasonal flu proportions would be expected with all interventions effective.
	The scientific advisory group is modelling for an extremely effective countermeasures strategy, but within that there is not just a 50 per cent. antiviral stockpile, but a 75 per cent. antiviral stockpile. Although the Secretary of State says that he is not at the moment making any proposal for a pre-pandemic vaccine, the countermeasures contemplated in that model by the scientific advisory group include a 100 per cent. pre-pandemic vaccination. So will he undertake to consider in those discussions whether that is a viable model to allow further countermeasures to be put in place?
	On a pre-pandemic vaccine, the 3.3 million doses of H5N1 that we have in hand were bought not only for possible use with health care workers, but for research. The Secretary of State knows that he cannot explain why they have not been used for any research, but research into H5N1, other vaccines and, indeed, vaccine technology is a vital part of our long-term preparations. Even if a pandemic does not occur in the next year or two or threeif it is 10 years hencethe efforts that we take now to improve vaccine technology so that we have cell-based or even DNA vaccines to respond much more quickly to a pandemic could be something for which we will be extraordinarily grateful in future.
	The Secretary of State is still buying antivirals on the basis of treatment only. Will he undertake further to consider prophylaxis, particularly household prophylaxis, for antivirals and the acquisition of a stockpile for that purpose? Will he tell the House whether he has considered the threat of resistance developing to Tamiflu and whether he contemplates any subsidiary stockpile of Relenza, for example, for that purpose?
	The framework document is very limited in its response on critical care beds. It is quite clear from work done by the Intensive Care Society two years ago that our critical care capacity will be overwhelmed in the event of a pandemic. It called for a doubling or a tripling of critical care capacity. What steps has the Secretary of State already put in place to expand critical care?
	On school closures, the framework still pretty much says, We'll see where we get to, and then the Government will issue advice. Did not Operation Winter Willow, if it was realistic, suggest that the Government will not be in a position to decide whether schools close in a severe pandemic? Parents will keep their children at home. Schools will close. Large numbers of health care workers and others will be at home, looking after their children. We must have a strategy in place that understands human behaviour in circumstances where the pandemic is severe.
	Are the Government considering following the example set by the American Government of having not only WHO alert status, but their own view of the relative severity of a pandemic to guide the selection of countermeasures? It is certainly true that schools in America have already sent guidance to parents about what would happen at their school in the event of a pandemic.
	I am sure that what the Secretary of State said about the WHO and developing countries is very welcome, but he will know, and the House should understand, that if there is a pandemic with a high case fatality rate and as many millions of people in developing countries are immune-compromised as a result of HIV/AIDS, the potential threat worldwide is dramatic. So it is increasingly important that, for example, the Department for International Development and the Department of Health jointly work on trying to support contingency planning and countermeasures in some of those developing countries.
	People often say, We had BSE. We had SARS. We've had one scare after another. Isn't this just another scare? Frankly, it has never been my view, as the Secretary of State knows, that this is just another scare. We had three pandemics in the last century. The characteristics of this one, with H5N1 persisting in the bird population alongside large numbers of humans, are probably more like those of 1918. The case fatality rate in 1918 was 2.5 per cent. This is a severe pandemic. It might not happen in the next few years, but it will happen at some point. Therefore, the measures that we take, as an insurance premium, remain modest in relation to the dreadful consequences of suffering from a pandemic on that scale, without those countermeasures being in place.
	I have no doubt that Britain remains among those who are best equipped and have some of the best planning in place, but so we should be. I hope that we will be an exemplar to other countries, both in how we respond here to a pandemic and in how we support others, particularly the least developed countries.

Alan Johnson: I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman's constructive remarks. To pick up some of the issues, first, my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Transport said, when a Health Minister, that we would have a report ready in January. In essence, having the framework available now has allowed us to take full cognisance of Operation Winter Willow and to take into account the responses, because we had a closing date of 16 May for people to respond to the lessons that were learned. So the framework is better for the short delay.
	The hon. Gentleman asks about the amount being spent, but may I give a hazard warning? I am perfectly willing to answer all questions on how much we spend on antivirals, antibiotics and so on after we have clinched a deal. The problem with our talking about the amount that we plan to spend is that it hampers our ability to get a good commercial deal. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the advance supply agreements, for instance, cost 155.4 million over four years and the amount that we spent on H5N1 was 33.4 million, but I am reluctant to give the global figures for the stocks that we are due to negotiate on.
	The hon. Gentleman mentions the scientific advisory group's option about 75 per cent. coverage. He is absolutely right that that was an option. The question is whether that is a viable model, and the scientists are still discussing the answer and whether we can use the antiviral for prophylaxis, because that very important issue is still subject to emerging science.
	The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about using H5N1 vaccine for research. He knows that I said in a frank piece of correspondence with him earlier this year that I did not know why it was not being used for research, but we can discuss why we cannot use that for greater research when we have the scientists in front of us.
	Work is going on to look at Relenza, because of some evidence that people might become resistant to Tamiflu and because it is advisable to have two drugs available. At the moment, Tamiflu is the only one.
	On critical care capacity, when the hon. Gentleman sees the surge capacity guidance, he will realise that we spend a great deal of time considering how we can deal cost-effectively with a surge that is likely to arise from a pandemic, and critical care is obviously a factor of that.
	On school closures, I had some wise advice from my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), who told me that when he was at school in 1957, during the Asian flu outbreak, the school was closed down. It is good to have such distinguished, wise and elderly colleagues in Cabinet to tell us about such things. Essentially, we believe that the best thing that can possibly happen is that anyone who has symptoms of pandemic flu goes home and stays there; they should not go anywhere where they might spread it. That is why we now say in the guidance that there has been a change in the assessment programme for antiviral access, for instance, for children under seven. Previously, the guidance said that they should be initially seen by a GP. We now think that we can deal with that through the national flu line service, thus avoiding parents having to take ill children to doctors' surgeries, where we could get a greater spread.
	The other very important point that the hon. Gentleman makes is about the need for international co-operation, particularly in relation to HIV/AIDS and having DFID, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and our Department working together. We do that through the WHO, and it is a very important part of the partnership approach to the issue.
	Finally, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in saying that this is not another scare. It is very important to reassure the public that we are not making this statement on the framework because there is an impending outbreak of pandemic flu; we are doing so because there were no national plans in 1968 for Hong Kong flu, which was the last outbreak, when we just fudged everything and got through as best we could. We need to have these plans. The hon. Gentleman is right that there will be an outbreak of pandemic fluit is not a question of if, but a question of whenand it is right that this country is properly prepared.

Norman Lamb: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his early contact today to alert me to the statement and for early sight of the statement itself. He and the Minister responsible for public health have my reassurance that I am keen to co-operate fully on the process and look forward to hearing further about arrangements to meet with scientists and so on.
	The statement comes just a fortnight after the outbreak of avian flu in my part of the world, in Suffolk. I fully understand that, as the Secretary of State made clear, there is not any fear of an imminent outbreak, but I guess that he would agree that we have been given a timely reminder of the absolute importance of getting a robust framework in place without delay.
	On capacity in the NHS and social care, we talked yesterday about occupancy rates with regard to hospital-acquired infections. Is a system that is under quite a lot of strain in terms of capacity, in relation to both health and social care, in a state to cope with a pandemic flu outbreak? Is there a need to look further at whether to increase capacity in the NHS and social care?
	On international action, I note that the Secretary of State made it clear that the UK is ahead of the game. That is good to hear. However, presumably it is important, in terms of our own interests, quite apart from the interests of others, to promote effective action across Europequite apart from globally. What co-ordinating work is taking place with other European countries to ensure that they get their plans in place effectively? A report from the WHO found that less than half of the EU countries surveyed provided defined plans for the distribution of antivirals or specific guidance on where vaccines would be stored, how they would be distributed and who would administer them. Two thirds of national plans depart from WHO guidelines on the crucial step of limiting people's movements from affected to unaffected areas. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that the whole of Europe responds effectively and in accordance with WHO guidelines?
	In December 2005, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee issued a report that questioned whether the Department of Health could provide strong enough leadership in the event of a flu pandemic. It recommended the appointment of a Cabinet-level Minister, who would be responsible for co-ordinating implementation of a framework plan if there was a pandemic. Has that been considered, or is it under consideration currently? Is the Secretary of State happy that there is sufficient co-ordination with other Departments, and also, critically, with local government and public agencies? Reference has been made to the provision of resources to help the planning process. Does local government have sufficient resources to plan effectively in co-ordination with national Government?
	Finally, on the time scale, can the Secretary of State give some indication of when the meetings in which the Conservative spokesman and I are to be involved are likely to take place, and when he hopes to get a final framework in place? We are all agreed that that is of the utmost importance and we all have a shared objective to get it in place as soon as possible.

Alan Johnson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive approach to the issue. He mentioned H5N1 in Norfolk. I know that he knows the medical advice, but it is probably as well if I read into the record the fact that H5N1 is predominantly an infectious disease of birds and that there is very little evidence of widespread human infection thus far, just as there is very little evidence of the kind of easy person-to-person transmission required to cause a human flu pandemic. However, H5N1 is a potential seedbed for the emergence of such a virus, which is why poultry workers in his constituency have been given the vaccine for H5N1 and offered regular seasonal flu jabs.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether the NHS will be able to cope. Yes, we are sure that it will. It will be able to cope much better for having gone through the national simulation project, Winter Willow, earlier in the year. We keep the situation constantly under review. The NHS showed its capacity to respond in relation to events such as the floods in Gloucester and my area recently. The situation, once the pandemic strikes, will of course be on a far bigger scale. However, all the evidence is that the NHS is ready to step up to the mark in these situations.
	The hon. Gentleman asked about effective action across the EU. He is right that there is a necessity for that. The Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South, hosted a conference in July of other European member states, and there was a discussion through the WHO in Washington recently, which included most European Union member states. We are all interdependent in the European Union, which is an important reason why the EU can give a focus to dealing with a pandemic. If the EU did not exist, we could not have that kind of cross-country co-operation.
	The co-ordination in this country would take place through Cobra, chaired by the Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman asked about co-ordination with public agencies. Gold command was another example of public agencies working together very well, in terms of both the security threat and the recent floods. I have absolutely no doubt that public agencies will be able to cope in the event of a flu pandemic.
	Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked when we should have the meeting with my right hon. Friend the Minister of State and the experts and scientists. That should take place as soon as possible. I was talking to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire earlier. Perhaps we should organise a Hansard Society debate on the issue so that we can have all the available experts participating, as well as having important debates in the Chamber.

Howard Stoate: I thank the Secretary of State for an excellent statement. I am sure that the entire country will be pleased to hear that not only is Britain more prepared than any other country in Europe, but we are more prepared than we ever have been. The most effective and likely way of dealing with pandemic flu is the development of an effective vaccine. There are two problems with that. First, we have to develop the vaccine when we have the virus, and therefore we cannot do it yet. The second big problem is capacity for production. The biggest bottleneck we have is that, when there is a vaccine available, it will take some time to produce enough doses. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with vaccine manufacturers to ensure that there is enough mothballed capacity in the vaccine manufacturing industry in Europe and across the world to ensure that we get enough doses quickly enough when the vaccine is developed?

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend raises a crucial point. That was an essential element of our negotiation of the advance supply agreement. We have the agreement with two companies: Baxter's and GSK. Part of that is to ensure that we get the proper level of supply, and to ensure that, in the event of an outbreak of a pandemic, the country that the vaccine is manufactured in ensures that it reaches this country and is not prevented from doing so by measures taken in the country of production. That is why we have insisted that the vaccine must be manufactured in the European Union and why we have insisted on a clause stating that either the country of manufacture must have an agreement for sufficient supplies to the host country or that the companies must make that country aware of the agreement with this country. That is as far as we can go to ensure that we have the proper measures. The fact that we have the advance supply agreements in placeonly two or three countries have similar agreements, so we are one of the firstmeans that we are better placed than most other countries to deal with the situation.

Nigel Evans: I congratulate the Secretary of State for Health on coming to the Chamber to make a statement. Perhaps he could have a word with his chum the Secretary of State for Transport to tell her that that there is nothing to be frightened of and that perhaps she should give it a go now and again.
	One group that would clearly be under threat from an influenza pandemic is elderly people and those who are already infirm. Can the Secretary of State give any guidance on what advice would be given to people to be good neighbours? In rural areas, such as the area where I live, there tends to be a good neighbourhood policy in any event, particularly in relation to elderly people and those who live alone. One of the loneliest places, from my experience, is a city with a population of millions. People may live in a block of flats but still not talk to anybody on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps advice could be given that, particularly in the lead-up to what could be an outbreak of a flu pandemic, people should be good neighbours, look more carefully at people who live around them, and provide guidance and lifts to pharmacies or GPs.

Alan Johnson: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and guidance is an essential element. We are saying that if a person has any symptoms of the flu, they should go home. For the vast majority of the population, a flu pandemic will mean a couple of days in bed, and then they will be fine. The essential thing is that they do not spread the disease, so we advise them to stay at home.
	We use the terminology a flu friend. A person with symptoms should not go to the pharmacy to collect their drugs, as they are likely to spread the illness. They should stay at home, and a friend, member of the family or colleague will go to the pharmacy for them, collect the antiviral, which is taken in tablet form, and take it home to them.
	One of the many reasons that I am proud of this country is that there is still a community spirit. We saw it in the floods, and we see it every time there is an emergency. People are good at ensuring that they do as much for their community as possible. There can be a problem with ensuring that proper advice is given to people in isolated rural communities, who sometimes do not see a human face from one week to the next. We have to make sure that if they do not have relatives or friends nearby, someone is there and is responsible for ensuring that they receive the proper antiviral.

Paddy Tipping: The Secretary of State has made it clear that there is no chance of people catching avian flu from eating poultry, provided that it is properly prepared and cooked. Given that this is an important time for the poultry industry, will he work with his colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and with the industry to promote that message in the run-up to Christmas?

Alan Johnson: I will do that, but I am absolutely sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs needs no reminding. I have heard him make the point absolutely clear. It is essential that people are reassured that there is absolutely no danger from eating turkeyprovided, of course, that it is cooked properly. If it is not, there would be a danger in any circumstances.

Roger Williams: As has been said, effective pre- and post-pandemic vaccinations are likely to be the most important tools for limiting the severity of an outbreak. The speed at which vaccines are developed is very important. It depends greatly on international surveillance to identify any emerging pandemic, including perhaps in less developed countries that do not have the facilities. What support are our Government giving to worldwide surveillance, so that we can identify any potential pandemic?

Alan Johnson: We are completely supporting the World Health Organisation's attempts to ensure that that takes place. I have announced the extra 2 million that we are providing to ensure vaccination in developing countries. We are better placed than we were when previous pandemics broke out, as there is closer collaboration with other countries and better communications. That can mean that the pandemic spreads more widely, more quickly, so it is a double-edged sword. Surveillance, the necessity of concentrating on tackling an outbreak wherever it is in the world, and ensuring that the outbreak is an epidemic, not a pandemic, are central features of trying to protect the British public.

Martin Horwood: I declare a personal interest, as my wife is a director of public health. I first questioned the attack and fatality rates in the Department's assumptions last July, so I very much welcome a fresh look at those assumptions. Why is the Government's worst-case fatality rate still only 2.5 per cent., given that among humans catching the avian variant the fatality rate is in excess of 50 per cent., and given that the Department has accepted that there are no comparable statistics for the precursors of earlier epidemics? Secondly, will the Secretary of State work with Ministers in the Department for International Development to increase production capacity in south-east Asia for pre-pandemic antiviral treatment, which might help to suppress an outbreak at source and increase global capacity for antiviral production?

Alan Johnson: All I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that we are following the best scientific advice, which is still that the upper level for deaths will be 2.5 per cent. of those affected by the pandemic. That remains the case, and that is the reasonable worst-case scenario. To take absolute precautions on the reasonable worst-case scenario, and ensure that we have what we call defence in-depth, we should move from 25 per cent. coverage to at least 50 per cent. coverage. The scientific advice is very much with us on that. The mortality rate remains 2.5 per cent. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman speak to his hon. Friend the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who can explore the issues when we gather with the experts, but that still remains the best scientific evidence, and I must be guided by that evidence.

Karen Buck: Inner-city communities such as mine are characterised by very high population turnoverwe have 30 per cent. change on the electoral registerhigh diversity, and a very low proportion of registration with GPs. That feeds through into relatively low screening and immunisation rates across the board. That is bad enough for measles, mumps and rubella and cervical cancer; it could be catastrophic in the circumstances that we are talking about. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that he is liaising with primary care trusts, hospital trusts and local authority organisations to deal with the particular pressures on inner-city communities, where people are not registered with GPs? There is also the issue of casualised workers who do not have sick pay entitlement; we need to have a dialogue with employers, to encourage them to ensure that employees take time off when symptoms occur.

Alan Johnson: My hon. Friend is right to say that that co-ordination is essential. Our plan is for the national flu line service, run by NHS Direct, to be the first port of call. GPs' surgeries, and hospitals in particular, should be left for the most serious cases. Our plan is that people ring an easily accessible number and explain their symptoms. The national flu line service can then ensure that there is a supply of antivirals ready to be picked up from a supply depot. The flu friend I have talked about would then go and collect it for them. In the vast majority of cases, there will be no need to go to a GP's practice. We have to make sure that people understand that, and understand the arrangements that are in place, so that when there is a pandemic outbreak, the national health service and GPs' surgeries are not inundated with people who are there because they think that the GP may be able to do something for them, when we have plans in place to ensure that antivirals can be distributed without the GP being involved.

TOPICAL DEBATE

Climate Change

Mr. Deputy Speaker: We now come to the main business, which is the second of the topical debates. May I share with the House the difficulty of determining the appropriate time limit for Back Benchers in an oversubscribed debate? Under the rules, the Front Benchers could, between them, take 26 minutes or, if intervened on to the full extent, 52 of the 90 minutes available. I do not want to inhibit the debate in any sense, but the more interventions that are made, the less time there is for us to try to ensure the fullest possible participation in the debate. I call Mr. Phil Woolas.

Phil Woolas: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I will try as best I can to accommodate a good debate. There is always a balance between taking interventions and eating into Back Benchers' time, so I will get on with it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It would help if the Minister moved the motion.

Phil Woolas: I beg to move,
	That this House has considered the matter of climate change.
	It is appropriate that climate change has been chosen for one of the first topical debates, because in the Government's view it is the greatest challenge of our time. It threatens not only our environment, but our security, prosperity and future development. Last weekend, right hon. and hon. Members will have seen the report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change; its conference is taking place in Valencia. The report has given the world the loudest possible wake-up call. The warming of the climate system is now unequivocal. I am not aware of any country in the world that doubts the existence of man-made climate change. It is incumbent on us all to provide the leadership and take the decisive action that the scientists have called for.
	The report from the intergovernmental panel on climate change report comes two weeks ahead of the meeting of the world's Environment and Finance Ministers in Bali as part of the United Nations framework convention on climate change. At that meeting, along with our EU colleagues, we want to see the launch of comprehensive negotiations to deliver a post-2012 agreement to tackle climate change, 2012 being the end of the first period of the Kyoto agreement.

John Redwood: Can the Minister tell us what percentage energy reduction his Department will achieve this year?

Phil Woolas: Not off the top of my head, but I can send that information to the right hon. Gentleman. We in the Department take very seriously our role as an exemplar of reducing carbon emissions. Clearly, if we are trying to influence public opinion, we must set a good example. Parliament, and not least the right hon. Gentleman, will make sure that we do. I thank him for that intervention.
	It is important to avoid a gap between the first and second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol. For that reason, we need to secure agreement by the end of 2009. Apart from the need to avoid such a gap, it is important that Parliaments and legislatures have time to scrutinise agreements, and perhaps even more important that businesses and organisations, particularly the energy industry, have time to put their policies into place.
	I draw the attention of the House to the statement that we published on Monday setting out the approach that the Government believe should underpin a post-2012 framework for international action. There are four key principles. First, the post-2012 regime must fit the scale of the challenge. To avoid the dangerous impacts of climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak within 10 to 15 years and fall by at least 50 per cent. by 2050.
	Secondly, the agreement must be fully effective, involving all countries with significant emissions. For that to be real, the Government believe that a truly global carbon market needs to develop, because putting a price on carbon is essential to incentivise new investment in energy efficiency and clean energy sources, not just for the developed world but for the developing world as well.
	The third principle is that of fairness. Developed countries such as ours have the greatest responsibility and the greatest capacity to reduce emissions. The larger emerging economies, however, also need to adopt new commitments that reflect their growth and pace of progress, ensuring that their future prosperity goes hand in hand with environmentally and economically sustainable development. Fairness also demands that richer countries play their part to support developing countries as they make the transition to clean energy technologies.
	The fourth principle is that a post-2012 agreement must be comprehensive, addressing emissions from energy at the same time as controlling emissions from land use and, as I said to the Forestry Commission yesterday, deforestation.

David Kidney: With reference to fairness between the developed world and the developing world, will my hon. Friend say a little about the Government's attitude towards the transfer of know-how, technology and funding from the developed to the developing world without opening up a loophole in a future binding agreement, so that we do not all buy credits in other parts of the world for schemes that should have been undertaken by another route anyway, as part of meeting our own obligation?

Phil Woolas: My hon. Friend identifies a crucial point. Our responsibility to the developing world requires a binding commitment on ourselves and other developed countries in agreement to contributeI was about to say more than our fair share, but it is not more than our fair share because, historically, we have that responsibility. Carbon markets and offsetting can help the technological transfer that my hon. Friend calls for, but it is crucial that we avoid the outcome that he is concerned about.

Lembit �pik: I agree 100 per cent. on the case for a carbon market, but does the Minister agree that it is important that we get the pricing right? Does he accept that there will be an impact on the nuclear debate, because nuclear energy is not zero carbon? It has a carbon footprint. In the consultation that is scheduled to report soon, will there be a statement on the carbon consequences of the nuclear industry, taking the mining of uranium into account?

Phil Woolas: The hon. Gentleman raises a point that is central to the debate. Underlying his question are the crucial debates and decisions about the starting point, as different countries are on different trajectories. That makes his first point even more important. A carbon market must be based on robust science.

Several hon. Members: rose

Phil Woolas: Perhaps I could finish my remarks about the principles before taking interventions.

David Chaytor: Will my hon. Friend take an intervention about the carbon market?

Phil Woolas: Yes. I will not use up the injury time, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

David Chaytor: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's assurance that he will visit my constituency to speak to the Bury climate change coalition in the near future, and I look forward to agreeing a date for that visit with his office. Before we leave the topic of the carbon market, will he look again at the question of the cap on the number of credits that the Government could buy through the carbon market as a means of securing their CO2 emission targets? The response to the pre-legislative scrutiny is not strong enough on that pointthe Government suggested that there should be no limit to the number of credits that could be purchased.

Phil Woolas: I look forward to visiting Bury and engaging the public in these debates. That is important and I commend my hon. Friend's leadership in his constituency. The Climate Change Bill will soon be debated in the other place and I look forward to the advice of the other place on the point that my hon. Friend makes. The priority is to achieve a global carbon market, but within that we can take account of his point.
	The fourth principle is that the agreement must be comprehensive. It must address emissions from energy at the same time as controlling emissions from land use and deforestation. Following the preparatory committee meeting in Indonesia, I am much more optimistic that forestry and deforestation can be included within the framework conversations. There has been positive movement on that issue, although one must be cautious. All significant sources and gases must be included, not just CO2. Aviation and shipping are crucial international industries, which must be covered by a long-term framework.
	As all our constituents tell us, the UK cannot tackle climate change alone, but we believe that we are showing strong leadership by taking action domestically to reduce our emissions. We are on course to meet our Kyoto targets. That target matters above all the others and we are making good progress. There is an important message that the United Kingdom and other countries are taking around the world. We have been able to show that economic growth and increased prosperity for our peoples are possible while cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The fear of the developing world and of many individuals is that that decoupling is not possible. The United Kingdom is in a strong position. The Climate Change Bill, introduced to Parliament last week, is the first of its kind in the world. Through domestic and international action, it will enact our target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by at least 60 per cent. below 1990 levels by 2050. In his speech earlier this week, the Prime Minister outlined detailed measures for moving forward on that policy.
	We will continue to take significant steps to reduce major emissions and improve the lowest hanging fruit, which is energy efficiencyin our homes, businesses and public sector organisations. We will promote better information and make it easy for the public to act. All the evidence from the Act on CO2 campaign shows that the public are willing to take action, and our job is to put the structures and processes in place so that that can happen. That is why we have announced that homes will have access to a one-stop green homes service, which will provide high-quality, independent advice on energy efficiency, microgeneration, transport, water, waste and related issues.
	Businesses are also playing their part. As the Chancellor remarked, a green industrial revolution is taking place worldwide. It
	presents the opportunity for new goods, new services, new capital markets and new jobs.
	The UK environmental industry has massive potential to take those chances. This country has a dynamic and growing sector, with a turnover of 25 billion in 2004; that is predicted to grow to 46 billion by 2015. As I said, while our economy is growing, our greenhouse gas emissions are reducing. That is the crucial part of the policy.
	I look forward to the debate and to continuing to make progress with our overseas colleagues. A truly global effort is required. We have our part to play, and this country has a proud tradition of leading opinion.

Gregory Barker: The Conservative party welcomes this topical debate on climate change. It is timely, coming between the Second Reading of the Climate Change Bill in another place next week and the Prime Minister's first substantive foray into the climate change agenda last Monday.
	We welcomed several elements of the Prime Minister's speech, but it is unfortunate that he waited five months after taking officeindeed, until after he had called off a general electionbefore making a significant speech on the greatest threat facing humankind. However, it must be a positive step forward that he is now beginning to engage in the debate.
	The big question for us all, certainly for all of us concerned about stopping global warming, is this: does this new Prime Minister really get it? The rhetoric of his speech on Monday was positive, but we all know that rhetoric is not enough; if it were, the problem of climate change would have been solved long ago. We need urgent action and we want to work constructively with the Government to achieve it.
	The new politics of climate change puts an onus on politicians of all parties to try to forge a consensus when possible. However, that does not mean failing to hold the Government to account for inaction, contradiction or lack of ambition. Taking the Prime Minister at face value on climate change is a big ask, and his performance so far this year is not encouraging.

Lembit �pik: Before the hon. Gentleman gets to the confrontational part of his speech, I should like to catch him in his consensual mood. Do he and his party agree with the Liberal Democrat view that smart meters are essential to reduce energy needs? Does he agree that one of the things that we need to persuade the Government to doit should not be a partisan effortis to make sure that they set a benchmark and a standardised environment within which all the smart meter and energy companies can compete? Such companies are not against competition, but they need guidance from the Government to achieve their goals.

Gregory Barker: That is a good point, with which I am happy to agree. There has been some good work on smart meters, which we have already pledged to roll out: the report chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) focused on the role of smart meters.

John Gummer: Will my hon. Friend remind the Liberal Democrats that it is no good just getting the conformity right? We have to commit ourselves to rolling out smart meters in eight years. That can be done; the industry can meet that target. That will make a bigger difference than anything else. Why on earth have the Government held up the legislation in place to do that?

Gregory Barker: Exactlywe need urgent action.

David Chaytor: The hon. Gentleman talked about a lack of Government ambition. Can he name any Government in the world who have shown more commitment or exercised more influence than ours in putting the case for an international agreement on CO2 emissions?

Gregory Barker: On the international stage, where rhetoric is at a premium, the Government have done well, and I certainly pay tribute to the work of Tony Blair. However, we have a real problem in respect of our domestic performance: we are simply not matching the international rhetoric with delivery at home.
	I have a few examples of the failure of Government rhetoric. This year, they dropped their own commitment, made in three consecutive manifestos, to cut British carbon emissions by 20 per cent. by 2010, and replaced it with a target of 15 per cent.  The Guardian reports today that the Government have ordered a U-turn on the Merton rule, having caved in to the House Builders Federation. The Government have chronically underfunded, and are now scrapping, the farce that is the low-carbon buildings programme, causing huge problems for the microgeneration industry. They have underspent, cut and then redirected budget commitments for energy efficiency and failed to support plans to build the world's first carbon capture and storage power station in Peterhead, Scotland, opting instead for yet another iterative round of consultation and a competition, instead of just getting on with it. They were caught red-handed trying to water down Britain's commitment to the EU renewable energy target of 20 per cent. by 2020.
	Although the Prime Minister acknowledged the scale of the challenge that we face, his speech was remarkably short on solutions proportionate to the task. We had already heard much of what was announced. The Government had already committed to end fuel poverty, take action on low-energy light bulbs, build zero-carbon homes from 2016 and launch a competition to build a commercial carbon capture and storage project in Britain. The most groundbreaking proposal on Monday may have been the Prime Minister's move to eliminate plastic shopping bags, but even that is to go to a forum for discussion before anything is done. Reluctance, reannouncements, rehashing and repetition are, sadly, all too familiar.
	People are asking where the real vision and action are. If we judge the Government's performance this year by deeds and not words, a decidedly mixed and unambitious picture emerges. I ask the House to keep in mind the following facts: despite all the talk, UK carbon emissions are still higher today than when the Labour Government took office 10 years ago; the downward trajectory is barely noticeable. This morning, perhaps mindful of the irony of the fact that we were to have this debate, the Government snuck out a written statement announcing that they intend to expand massively Heathrow airport, without so much as a mention of climate change or carbon emissions in the consultation process. The Bali conference is only weeks away, and Britain will no longer be visiting in a position of global leadership on climate change.

Martin Horwood: On the subject of leadership, will the hon. Gentleman take this perfect opportunity to say that, in respect of the targets in the Climate Change Bill, the Conservative party will stand shoulder to shoulder with Friends of the Earth and the Liberal Democrats in arguing for reductions of at least 80 per cent. by 2050?

Gregory Barker: That is a good point, and I shall come to it specifically later.

David Kidney: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that when we get to the international negotiations, Governments from around the world will resist any binding agreements on carbon reduction, because they fear that it will harm their economies? Does he give credit to this Government for proving in the past 10 years that we have successfully expanded our economy but decoupled the production of carbon emissions that used to go with that?

Gregory Barker: We have expanded our economy but barely reduced our CO2 emissions, and we will meet our Kyoto commitments only because of the big leap forward that was made under the last Conservative Government. Nevertheless, I give credit to the Government for arguing the case.

David Chaytor: Will the hon. Gentleman remind us of his party's view of the climate change levy and what contribution that has made towards reducing CO2 emissions?

Gregory Barker: The climate change levy is a very inefficient tool: like a lot of things that come from new Labour, it is a great brand but poor in its effects. We should replace it with a carbon levy that does not focus on the amount of energy a business uses and clobber its competitiveness across the board, but focuses specifically on carbon output. That would be a much more business-friendly tool.

John Gummer: Is not the climate change levy a typical example of this Government's actions? They call something the right name, it does not work, and then they accuse people who complain about it of attacking the whole principle. They must put their words and actions together if we are to achieve anything.

Gregory Barker: It is new Labour all overgreat brand, shame about the product.
	To be fair, the Government are coming forward with some new measures that we can support, but they are small beer compared with the enormity of the task that we face. Nor can we leave it all to individuals or the consumer to help to deliver Britain's CO2 reductions. What Britain needs is dynamic industrial changechange that is urgent, ambitious, clear and focused on the long term. The Prime Minister is right to join us in talking about the advent of a new industrial revolution and the opportunities that that could present, but the current pedestrian pace of change is not commensurate with the urgency of the challenge. Conservatives understand the changes that we need to make and the path that we need to take to meet this enormous challenge, but we also recognise the huge economic opportunity for Britain that this could offer. Over the next decade, UK plc has a real opportunity to lead the world. Conservative Members are not pessimists. Mankind will reach for solutions; our most progressive companies and successful entrepreneurs are already doing so. I have no doubt that we can embrace the low-carbon economy, because with or without us the world economy will change

John Redwood: Does my hon. Friend agree that if one wishes to influence people's behaviour it is often better to offer them tax incentives and encouragement instead of higher taxes and over-prescriptive regulation that they can get around?

Gregory Barker: My right hon. Friend has hit on the head the difference between the Labour way and the Conservative way. We stand for incentives, encouragement and supporting business, not just clobbering it.
	In Britain, we have a clear choice. We can be players on the field of the global economy, looking for solutions, forging new markets and grabbing first mover advantage, or we can be spectators watching from the sidelines while the action takes place without us. We have the research excellence and the entrepreneurs, and in the City we have an abundance of green capital. Let us not repeat the mistakes that we made after world war two, when in the face of change we clung to the old industrial certainties. We failed to modernise and let our competitors invest in change and innovation, and by being so cautious we locked a whole generation into economic decline.
	As we enter the new low-carbon era, let us not make that mistake again. We need to embrace change and seize the opportunities that it will create. That is why we are drawing on the work of the quality of life review undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal and Zac Goldsmith. That is why we are using this great toolbox of ideas. That is why we propose bold policies such as the introduction of feed-in tariffs for microgeneration, which are working well in Europe, the replacement of the ineffective climate change levy with a focused carbon levy, and the introduction of a waste heat levy to incentivise combined heat and power and drive innovation in the energy sectorand let us not forget the reform of air passenger duty, which would move tax from the individual passenger to the efficiency of the aircraft. There is much more to come from the Conservatives, all of which will be aimed at ensuring that British business is sent clear, long-term market signals from the earliest possible date and that the long-term cost of carbon becomes embedded in economic decision making.
	The Climate Change Bill will play a vital role in helping to create the long-term direction that business needs. As the House knows, Conservatives welcome the Bill, and it is to the Government's credit that they introduced it in the Queen's Speech. We look forward to working constructively on a cross-party basis to enhance and strengthen it when it begins its passage through the House of Lords next week. However, we must all acknowledge that it is only a framework; it cannot deliver a low-carbon economy on its own. Without coherent, joined-up and ambitious policy to underpin it, it will be little more than an effective way to keep track of the Government's failure. As it stands, it needs to be strengthened and improved.
	I do not want to pre-empt the Second Reading debate on the Bill, but there is one crucial point that the Government need to act on urgently. On Monday, the Prime Minister finally acknowledged that all the latest science says that an emissions reduction target of up to 80 per cent. is necessary to keep warming within the 2 target. Conservatives strongly believe that scientists, not politicians, should drive those targets. He also seemed to acknowledge his awareness that there is a flaw in how the Bill proposes to deal with raising its current reduction target of a minimum of 60 per cent. The Government are to ask the independent committee on climate change to revisit the 60 per cent. minimum target and report back with its recommendations in 2009. However, the committee will set the first 15 years of carbon budgets in 2008a year before we know what the new reduction target will be. That is nonsensical. It is vital for British business to know the targets now, before we map out how we achieve them.
	On Monday, the Prime Minister acknowledged that there is a problem but fudged the response. More clarity is needed. We need the committee to be announced to Parliament now, to sit provisionally before Royal Assent is given to the Bill, and to inform the targets that are proposed in it. Any other route would not provide the clear, credible and long-term signal that business so badly wants from the Bill. Moreover, we firmly believe that the committee is insufficiently independent. Its remit is too broad and vulnerable to political influence. Its recommendations must be driven and informed by the science.

Martin Horwood: I agree about the need for independence and for a shadow committee to be established soon. Returning to targets, the hon. Gentleman seems to have accepted the figure of 60 per cent. that is in the Bill. What is his objection to setting a higher figure now and letting the scientists reduce it if we do unexpectedly well?

Gregory Barker: We want to get away from politicians fiddling with the targets and having a know-all attitude. We want science to drive the long-term targets. It is clear to everybody that 60 per cent. is not enough, but rather than mea graduate with a history and economics degreesuggesting a target for the Bill, far better that it should be the scientific committee that is going to sit and consider it. We will support a far more ambitious target, but for the sake of its credibility it needs to be set by scientists, not politicians.

Michael Jack: Does my hon. Friend agree with the conclusion of the report by the Select Committee that examined the draft Climate Change Bill, which said that the status of the Committee should be equivalent to that of the Monetary Policy Committee, whereby the Secretary of State would have to accept its advice and not merely regard it as guidance?

Gregory Barker: Those are wise words. We will draw on the work of my right hon. Friend's Committee in the House of Lords and, in the new year, in the Commons.
	We firmly believe that the committee must be independent and that independent science must drive its recommendations. It is not there to second-guess any of the Government's political priorities, whatever colour the Government of the day may be. There is much work to do on the Bill, but we look forward, in a constructive spirit, to enhancing and strengthening it in the coming weeks to turn it into the framework for dynamic industrial change that it has the potential to be.
	The world stands on the cusp of a new low-carbon age. Britain has too much potential to do anything other than help to lead the way forward. However, that requires a Government with ambition, vision, ideas and the people to come together to provide that leadership.

Colin Challen: I have sat in this Chamber on many occasions thinking that time was going backwards, and today that belief was confirmed. The clock has gone backwards several times already; I am sure that can be reviewed.
	I welcome the debate because it is very timely, given that the week-long conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association will take place next week, here in Westminster. Parliamentarians from all over the Commonwealth will attend, and I very much look forward to it. I also look forward to being in Bali for at least the first week of the conference. I hope to try to influence things, but I probably have no great chance of success. It will be a very difficult conferenceperhaps somewhat more difficult than a win for an English side against Croatia. At least the England team will get another chance; we will not have a second chance after Bali. There may well be a penalty shoot-out later on, but we will have to wait and see.
	I very much welcome the Government's statement on their principles for approaching Bali, and the credence we can give to the principles is based on the Government's leadership. There might be some domestic problemswe all know about thosebut in the international arena the UK has led the debate on climate change. The first principle states that the post-2012 regime must meet the scale of the challenge. That is absolutely correct. There cannot be any deviation from that principle at all. It is good to remind ourselves how big the challenge is. We often say that we have 10 or 15 years before global emissions peak and then drop. I would argue that we have already exceeded that peak.
	Over the past 650,000 years, the highest level of carbon alone in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million, and now that figure stands at 384 parts per million. Carbon equivalent gases are perhaps over 430 parts per million now. It is obvious to me that we are well into uncharted territory already. We do not have a window of opportunity to see how much further we can test the system. I would not accept anyone saying that we have another 10 or 15 years to sort the problem out. We do not.

Nigel Evans: I wish the hon. Gentleman well on his visit to Bali. I was in India not so long ago. It has huge poverty, and it is a developing country. We cannot tell countries such as India, or the poorest parts of China, that they cannot develop. We want to ensure that they are able to grow in the most environmentally friendly ways possible. Developed countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America can help by sharing our technology with those countries. We should not see that as a barrier to competition, or the giving away of a valuable resource. We would be playing our part in helping them to grow in an environmentally friendly way.

Colin Challen: I absolutely agree with that. There are two further points. We should also bear it in mind that if we want them to grow, we will have to allow them a degree of increase in their carbon emissions. We allowed ourselves that luxury. I hope that it would not be on the same scale as ours, but the only way to ensure that is to make our cuts even deeper. We also need technology transfer mechanisms. One of the possibilities that we ought to consider is the way in which the World Bank is funding fossil fuel developments. Oil companies, with oil priced at nearly $100 a barrel, are making unprecedented profits. That does not make sense.
	To return to the target, and the stabilisation greenhouse gases, a new element now has to be factored in. In the past, we largely concentrated on anthropogenic emissions, which reflects the science since about 1994. Recently, and this idea is now included in the Hadley Centre's future work programme, we have had to consider the coupling of greenhouse emissions from man-made sources and those coming from positive feedbacks into the system, which are now emerging as a major contributor. We have multiplied the impact of positive feedbacks, and if we get beyond a tipping point, there might be nothing we can do to rein in those feedbacks. That modelling is now being used more widely, including by the intergovernmental panel on climate change, even though it was buried deeply within its report. If we consider that factor, I hope that we will note that our targets have to be much higherprobably beyond the 80 per cent. that has already been mentioned this afternoon. That is a worrying development, but we have to take it into account if we are to achieve the first principle set out by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
	The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research has considered what our accepted share of global emissions might mean for us. It has shown that to have a 30 per cent. chance of avoiding dangerous climate change, the UK's 50-year budget between 2000 and 2050 has to be fixed at about 4.8 gigatonnes of CO2. It also has shown that between 2000 and 2006, the UK emitted 1.2 gigatonnes of CO2, so we have already used one quarter of the budget available to us, based on our current understanding of what must be done. That shows the severity of the situation. Based on those figures, to have a 30 per cent. chance of avoiding dangerous climate change, the cuts in our emissions we need to insist on after 2012 could be as much as 9 per cent. per annum. That goes well beyond anything anyone has asked for before.
	I want to examine one of the other principles to which the Government have alluded in their statement, which is the role of markets. Markets are seen as the greatest mechanism to deliver cost-effective reductions in carbon emissions, and we have to focus hard on how successful they will be, and on whether we should not put too much faith in them. It is quite right that low-cost options should be explored firstthey are the low-hanging fruit, and the biggest reductions can come that waybut the history of the markets to date shows a great deal of volatility in prices for carbon. It is now back at over 20 in the emissions trading scheme, having gone down to zero at one point.
	There is not a great deal of long-term investment opportunity for the investment community if it cannot see how the future will pan out for the price of carbon. If we are always going to focus on the cheapest price of carbon, we will price out some of the long-term, perhaps more expensive, things that we need to doalternative energy systems that are quite expensive to get up and running. We need to recognise what Stern said about carbon pricing: we cannot rely on markets alone to set the price. We have to do a range of other things to ensure that we do the right thing. To a great extent, we will need renewable technologies.
	I have already mentioned the role of the World Bank. It needs to stop funding fossil fuels immediately, and we should invest more heavily in renewables. We should follow the example of Germany and examine successful schemes, such as the feed-in tariff. There are arguments about the level at which it can be applied, but we ought to be open to such ideas, and not over- defensive about measures we have in place already. Those are working to a certain extent, but if we compare the way in which the German feed-in tariff works with the way in which the renewables obligation works, we find that the feed-in tariff delivers renewable electricity about 2 euro cents cheaper per kilowatt-hour than our own system. We should be open to new ideas. It would be an example of leadership in Bali to say that we are not going to hunker down and be protective about what we have done. We have to be open and co-operative if the Bali process is going to work.
	Finally, I would like to reiterate my proposal that in the two-year period before the COP 15 in Copenhagen, when I hope the deal will be ready to sign, the UK should have some sort of national, Government-sponsored convention on the climate change framework, so that we can involve civil society, non-governmental organisations, business and everyone else with an open mind, just as we did at the Exeter science conference, to include far more people in the debate.

Martin Horwood: It is the first Bill introduced into any national legislature with binding targets designed to limit and then slash national carbon emissions. Although its target of a 60 per cent. cut by 2050 is not nearly high enough for my liking, it is certainly ambitious, and its sponsors deserve praise for their political courage, their foresight and their willingness to tackle one of the most important challenges facing the world today. So, perhaps the Government will take the earliest opportunity to congratulate Senators Richard Warner of Virginia and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut on the American Climate Security Bill, which they introduced into Congress on 18 October. Yes folks, we have faffed around for so long with our Climate Change Bill that despite the fact that Friends of the Earth launched its big ask campaign in May 2005 we risk being overtaken by George Bush's America, of all places.
	As the USA is responsible for 20 per cent. of global greenhouse gas emissions, its Bill is of such global importance that I want to ask the Minister what discussions he has had with fellow Ministers at the Foreign Office to ensure that pressure is put on the US Administration not to veto it.

Phil Woolas: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I do not think that it is fair to say that we faffed around. We used pre-legislative scrutiny, for which the Liberal Democrats have always asked. Of course, it is the period of the enactment of our Bill that counts. It is important to recognise the efforts of those in the US Senate who have made similar proposals. The Foreign Office has been involved in debates with the White House, the Senate and the Congress on those points. I acknowledge the importance of the hon. Gentleman's point.

Martin Horwood: I am pleased by the Minister's response. Al Gore and other climate change campaigners have achieved a remarkable turnaround in American public opinion, but the oil man in the White House still has his head in the sand and his boots in the air. The British Government and the EU need to apply whatever pressure they can to ensure that the Lieberman-Warner Bill is passed.
	The Lieberman-Warner Bill tackles an question that I have asked several times in this House and that also appears in the Stern report. I have never heard an adequate reply from Ministers. What can be done about those countries that do not or will not put a cost on carbon in their economies and seek a short-term competitive advantage in mobile industries, such as the aluminium industry? We might see a flight from stricter carbon regimes, thereby making the situation worse in such industries rather than better.
	The Lieberman-Warner Bill suggests that imports from countries without an emissions cap should be subject to compulsory purchase of admissions permits. Stern considered a similar approach. What is the Government's preferred option? That would clearly form a part of the discussions on the international regime that we need after 2012, which must involve the World Trade Organisation, but we need a clear position.
	I suspect that that might be another example of the Government not thinking things through. If it is, it pales into insignificance beside the worst example of the Government's left hand not knowing what their right hand is doingaviation. Transport is the only sector of the economy in which emissions seem set to keep rising, and aviation is by far the worst offender per mile. It has more than doubled its emissions since 1990. Richard Branson is earnestly and sincerely seeking a sustainable biofuel for use in aeroplanes, but even he is not holding his breath. In the absence of some miracle get out of jail free card, we have to contain the growth in aviation. The fact that the Government support a third runway at Heathrow and are set to allow 60,000 more flights a year on the existing runways undermines their credibility on climate change. Serge Lourie, leader of Richmond upon Thames council and spokesman for the 2M group, which represents some 2 million London residents, has said:
	The Government is claiming that this will be a public consultation but it has already made up its mind that Heathrow capacity will almost double.
	He went on to say that that would be devastating. In terms of carbon emissions, he is quite right.
	Excuses are already being made for the expansion of Heathrow. I was sad to read the editorial in  The Times today that said that opponents of the third runway were
	wildly exaggerating the likely impact.
	It went on to say:
	Nor can the argument about climate change be harnessed to any anti-Heathrow campaign without also being applied to all airports across Europe.
	Let me make it clear: I oppose extra runways at Heathrow, Schiphol, Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt. This has to be a global and European campaign.

Nigel Evans: Will the hon. Gentleman elaborate on his party's policy? He has no say over Charles de Gaulle, Schiphol and Frankfurt, which have all expanded and compete with Heathrow. If he is going to contain the number of flights, at what yearly level will he do so? How many people would be able to fly in any given year? Who will he tell that they can no longer fly?

Martin Horwood: Restricting carbon emissions from aviation is not the same as restricting the number of people who fly. If we were to have an efficient regime whereby more people flew in full flights, and if we were to shift taxation on to flights rather than people, we could achieve both those things. Of course, we need to work at a European level. I want the Minister to confirm that he is working with colleagues across the EU to consider restricting aviation's growth rather than its massive expansion.

Lynne Jones: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is great potential for switching from planes to trains for domestic and European journeys? We should encourage movement in that direction.

Martin Horwood: I absolutely agree. The example of Eurostar, which has reduced the number of cross-channel flights, is relevant. It is important that we have a joined-up transport strategy. For example, if we supported the high-speed rail link to Scotland, we could cut domestic flights. We could then encourage an international rail network, which would cut the use of aviation.
	The Government have done well to champion the cause of climate change internationally and to introduce a Climate Change Bill at last. However, DEFRA needs to stop congratulating itself so much and to start working with other Ministers to ensure that all of Government works just as hard to tackle climate change.

David Kidney: In my brief speech, I want to focus on a single point: the skills needs demanded of our society by policies such as those that we are debating. My starting point is the Prime Minister's speech to WWF on Monday. He gave resounding answers to some of the important questions. First, he does get it. Contrary to what the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) said, the whispering campaign that suggested that the Prime Minister does not understand the urgency of climate change was completely and emphatically denied by that speech on Monday.

Gregory Barker: If the Prime Minister understands the urgency, why did he wait five months to make a speech?

David Kidney: That is a poor point. The Prime Minister runs the country and determines every aspect of our life. He made many decisions on climate change before he made his speech last Monday.
	Let me get on with the serious issues under consideration. The Prime Minister's second answer was that our global leadership on the matter will continue. His third answer, which followed another whispering campaign, was that we will play our full part in meeting the targets set by the EU spring Council. We should remember the ambition of the three targets of 20 per cent. by the spring Council20 per cent. increased energy efficiency, 20 per cent. of total energy from renewable energy sources and a 20 per cent. cut in carbon emissions, all of which are to be achieved by 2020. If we link those targets to our Climate Change Bill and the legally binding target to cut carbon emissions, we can see what a huge challenge we face.
	The Prime Minister has talked about a fourth technological revolution. What kind of technologies are we talking about? What will change in our lives because of those changes? We will demand greater efficiencies in existing processes. We will need technologies that allow different processes, particularly ones that do away with carbon, so we can expect a great expansion in renewable energy industries. We will need to manage raw materials more efficiently and to make meaningful use of the imperative reduce, reuse and recycle at every turn. We will need to manage finite natural resources, including water, more efficiently.
	In order to reach the low-carbon global economy that we need, we will all have to embrace sustainable development in every aspect of our livesin our home lives, our working lives and our travel arrangements. That massive change allows us to predict a massive expansion of new sustainable development technologies that will start immediately. However, if we do nothing about it the constraint will be that the skills will not be available.
	Schott UK in my constituency, a company that sells solar technologies, finds that the greatest restriction on its ability to improve its sales is to get people who can install solar panels at businesses and homes.

David Drew: My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, with which I agree. He makes an important pointI have tried to get renewable energy training courses set up in my local college, but there is a marked reluctance and lack of money, which must be overcome. Is it not time that we examined the matter in the context of further and higher education?

David Kidney: My hon. Friend anticipates the direction in which I am heading and I hope to give him some solutions shortly.
	Let us consider some of the skills that will be needed for invention, design, manufacture, installation, financing and sales, and repairs and maintenance. In a few years, a much larger proportion of our work force will need such skills. Let us remember the drivers for putting those technologies in place. In the Prime Minister's speech on Monday, he referred to the Climate Change Bill setting five-year budgets for three Budget periods at a timea 15-year period of assurance for those who make the decisions to invest in the right technologies. The energy Bill will reform the renewables obligation to introduce new technologies, includingin the jargon of the consultation on the renewables obligationthe emerging technologies. The Planning Bill will speed up infrastructure projects and the Housing and Regeneration Bill will pave the way for 3 million new homes. Let us not forget the Olympics. The drivers for the big surge in skills demand are already in place, and the Prime Minister understands that.

Gregory Barker: Why has the renewables obligation, which has existed for nearly eight years, failed to bring forward the new technologies, despite the hundreds of millions of pounds that have been taken from consumers? Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the system of feed-in tariffs in Germany has been more successful? I believe that it evidently has.

David Kidney: The hon. Gentleman invites me down a side route. I shall try to reply to his question briefly. Much of the answer lies in our country's history compared with that of Germany. We have taken the renewables obligation route rather than that of the feed-in tariff ever since the non-fossil fuel obligation. We should reconsider feed-in tariffs, especially with smart meters and microgeneration, to ensure that we get much more decentralised power in this country. I believe that the renewables obligation is a reasonable mechanism. The hon. Gentleman asked why it has failed. I believe that the reason is an inefficient planning system200 or so wind farms are currently stuck in the planning system. There are other obstacles such as connecting systems to the national grid. We must remove them as soon as possible.
	In the Prime Minister's speech on Monday, he recognised the need for skills and spoke about the train to gain programme and the need to expand the number of apprenticeship places in this country. He also called for a national skills academy for environmental industries. He reminded us that, even today, the environmental industries in this country are worth 25 billion to our economy and employ 400,000 people. The Prime Minister and I perceive the export opportunities for British technologies in that.
	The solution to fulfilling the skills needmy hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) will pay especial attention nowis a network throughout the country of sustainable development technologies centres. We need places where we can see the technologies that we are discussing. Members of the public and business representatives could visit them to see what the future holds, and students and children would go there as part of the sustainable development component of their education. Members of the work force would visit those places to acquire the skills that they needthat is crucial.
	I am not making some hypothetical suggestion to the Minister; realising such a proposal is in our grasp. I am one of the promoters of the first such centre, which is at the Rodbaston college of further education near Penkridge in my constituency. We have money from the Learning and Skills Council and the regional development agency to conduct a feasibility study to show that the crucial demand for skills means that the proposal stacks up financially.
	I anticipate colleges, universities, manufacturers, RDAs and local councils throughout the country wanting centres that provide such a range of services. I would like people to have the bricks and mortar and the technologies before their eyes to see that the technologies work and can be implemented now in this country, and to have hands-on opportunities to train for skills that are needed to operate those technologies. That should happen as soon as possible.

Michael Jack: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. However, does he agree that we must get the economics right? We are inviting the citizen to invest between 4,000 and 10,000 in the technologies that he describes. Unless we get the economics right, the services that he advocates will not follow.

David Kidney: Yes. When I answered the question by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle about the renewables obligation, I said that there was a range of obstacles. I emphasise that there is no silver bullet to solve the problem, but I am considering a specific bottleneck that will occur. We do not have the skills in place to make the expansion happen. That is important, but only one of many aspects that the Government must tackle immediately.
	I want to name the centres that I described SEE-change centres. SEE represents the three limbs of sustainabilitysocial, environmental and economic. It also suggests visibility. People could visit the centres and see the change that is necessary. The name also sounds like sea changethe massive change in pace and the direction that we need in this country. I hope that the Minister will wind up by saying, Kidney's got the right answer. I shall back his centre at Rodbaston with every ounce of my ability. I hope that he is successful in his constituency and that we achieve success throughout the country in developing the skills training facilities that we desperately need right now.

John Gummer: I hope that the Minister acknowledges that I am the first to congratulate the Government when they are doing the right thing and that I press them because we have a common desire to win the battles that we are considering. When I was Secretary of State for the Environment, I would have benefited from a similar approach from Labour Members. If they had been tougher and had a more advanced programme, I could have got more out of my Cabinet colleagues because they would have pressed me hard. I do not, therefore, want to let the Minister down when I press him.
	Although I welcome the Prime Minister's apparent acceptance of a target higher than 60 per cent. by 2050, it is pretty easy for politicians to set targets for dates long after they are active. We need targets for now and we need to be kept to them. That is as important for Oppositions as it is for Governments. Annual targets are important because they keep us under control. If we have annual targets, we cannot complain that the Government are doing something unpopular without presenting a sensible alternative. Annual targets are good for keeping Oppositions up to the mark. However, they are crucial for Governments.
	That is why the organisation of the committee that will consider climate change is also crucial. It should begin its work immediately, be independent and have the majority of its members appointed by the Royal Society, not the Government. The chairman should be appointed according to the clear proposition that we presented in the all-party early-day motion about the qualities that are necessary for that post if the Committee is not to be perceived as the Government's patsy. Genuine steps can be taken now.
	The Government must take practical and direct steps. It does not help when some of their supporters talk about whispering campaigns. Going back on our commitments in the European Union was not a whispering campaign, but a campaign by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, led by Sir Digby Jones. He should never have been taken into Government, because his record on environmental matters is appalling. To choose him as an example of business was a peculiar step.
	It is worrying that the Government do not take seriously the problems as they arise. I have genuine sympathy with the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). Of course, the Liberal Democrats need to adopt our view of getting an independent organisation to consider the figure. That would enable them to settle their problems. Some say that we should have a zero carbon figure and others say that it should be 80 per cent.

Martin Horwood: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

John Gummer: I will, because I tempted the hon. Gentleman.

Martin Horwood: I have enormous respect for the right hon. Gentleman's recent work for the Conservative party and his work when he was in government.
	Let me clarify the Liberal Democrat position. If we were in government, we would aim for 100 per cent. net reductions by 2050. However, we accept that that is not widely supported in this place and we therefore campaign with Friends of the Earth for a reduction of at least 80 per cent.

John Gummer: So as usual, when it comes to the crunch, the Liberal Democrats do not stick by their beliefs. That is a typical Liberal situationIf you don't like these policies, we've got some more. If God had been a Liberal, we would have had the 10 suggestions. That is the nature of the Liberal Democrats, so I shall not take from their campaign.

Martin Horwood: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

John Gummer: No; I have got another thing to say that will annoy the hon. Gentleman even more. I remember what the Liberal Democrats did on taxation on domestic fuel. They were in favour of it until there was a by-election, when they stopped being in favour of it in order to win the by-election.  [Interruption.] I shall not give way, and I had better continue, as you were clear about that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	Let me deal with aviation. Someone who flies at the back of the plane from London to Sydney and back again uses as much carbon as someone who uses 700,000 plastic bags. But tackling plastic bags is an easy thing to do; dealing with aviation is difficult. So I bothered to get hold of the Government's document on aviation, which the Secretary of State for Transport quite unaccountably and unacceptably did not come to present in the House. Let us look at this document. It has a covering note, which does not talk about climate change until right at the end, even though the document is about aviation. However, the covering note just says that there will be another document about climate change called UK Air Passenger Demand and CO2 Forecasts. All that is given is a list of details about the figures, with no comments about what we are going to do about them. Indeed, interestingly, there is a comment about National Air Traffic Services, but no discussion of the fact that we could reduce our emissions from air transport by 11 per cent. if we simply had a single version of NATS across the European Union, instead of being divided up as we are now. That is a simple measure that the Government do not even propose in their document.
	The introduction of the document, which one would have thought would refer to the real issue of climate change, does not refer to it at all. The Minister talks about the loudest possible wake-up call, but it has not woken up the Secretary of State for Transport or anyone in her Department. Then we open the pages and we read the Government's words:
	Our approach is entirely consistent with the Stern Review...and the Eddington Transport Study,
	which dealt with aviation and was by the man who ran British Airways. However, the one word that is not in the document is urgency; indeed, there is no urgency in it at all. It talks about the European trading system without mentioning any of the problems that everybody else recognises must be solved before the system can deal with aviation. One would think from the document that the problems had all been solved so easily.
	Then one reads, on page after page, every kind of argument, but no promise from the Government that they will pioneer, at the European level, the stopping of new runway building throughout the European Union. The document does not mention that; it just says, There're more elsewhere, so we've got to have one. The document does not mention that nearly one quarter of the flights out of London's airports go to places that are easily reached in the same time by train. For example, what are we going to do about the 30-odd flights a day to Manchester? There is no reason to have those. There is nothing about those in the document, nor is there anything about reversing the slot pricing, so that people pay more for short-haul flights and less for long-haul flights. There are none of those creative systems that one might put forward.

Nigel Evans: My right hon. Friend will know that half the people on the flights from Manchester to London are in transit, travelling to other destinations. Asking them to catch trains from Manchester to London and then to work their way through London to get to Heathrow or Gatwick is unreasonable.

John Gummer: It is more unreasonable for their children and grandchildren to be under water. My hon. Friend does believe in the urgency of the situation, but I am afraid that we must face it much more toughly than that. Anyway, if that issue really matters, what about a transport policy that would enable people to go by train from Manchester to Heathrow? What about a transport policy that was properly tied up? What about a transport policy that recognised that we want to get people from Scotland to London fast enough for them not to want to fly in an aeroplane? What we have got is a transport policy that accepts the nonsense of Eddington that we do not need high-speed rail. That in itself makes the Eddington report totally unbelievable in the international context.
	The truth is that the Government's document is an outrage, because in effect it says, We don't really feel we need to do the big things. Of course my hon. Friend is right: it is very difficult to do them. Indeed, we might have to do all kinds of things that are uncomfortable, but we should at least face up to the situation. At least let us say, We've decided in this area we're not going to do it, because we're going to do it somewhere else. I say this to the Government: do not slide out a document but then not come here so that we can ask these questions directly of the Transport Minister. Do not produce a document that is 10 years out of date in its approach, that ignores Stern and that does not back up what the Prime Minister has already said to us. That is the problem with everything else that the Government are doing. That is why I want to press the Minister who is here today, because I am a great supporter of his. I believe that he is tough enough to fight for these issues.
	Can we have feed-in tariffs without any more nonsense? That is what we need. Can they be tied up by the immediate introduction of the Bill already in Parliamentthe Liberal Democrats' Bill, with all-party supportthat would enable smart metering? If we did that over the next eight years, we could make a huge difference. Those policies can be delivered only through the European Union, so can we also show that we have a positive policy in the EU? That is the only area big enough to make the world different. However, we will not be able to do that if the Government do not even say in their document on aviation that they are seeking to ensure that there is no increase in runways throughout Europe. Unless they promise to do that, everything else that they say is hollow. That is why I say to the Minister: this is too urgent an issue to allow anybody to do anything without thinking about the climate change results. Why did the Government say that they would close 2,500 post offices without telling us what the climate

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.

Celia Barlow: I welcome this timely debate, particularly as I had the honour of serving on the Joint Committee on the draft Climate Change Bill, which is further proof of the Government's unswerving commitment to the global challenge.
	Britain continues to lead the way, with innovative policies and proposals, which will lead to a measurable change in our lifestyles. The green homes service outlined in the Prime Minister's speech to the WWF will be the first nationwide, dedicated service advising people on a wide range of green issues. There is undoubtedly a desire on the part of the consumer to act more responsibly with regard to their individual carbon footprint. People wish to reduce their carbon footprint, but all too often they are not given the tools with which to measure their energy output accurately.

Michael Jack: I wonder whether the hon. Lady could tell me what her carbon footprint is.

Celia Barlow: My exact carbon footprint for this year is being calculated. However, I bought a hybrid car recently, which has not only reduced my carbon footprint but changed my driving behaviour, because I am constantly aware of how much energy it takes when, for example, driving up a hill.
	My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has spoken about the need for people to monitor their energy output easilyindeed, I have just spoken of a way in which it was made easier for me to monitor my energy output. Given the technology that we now possess, it seems archaic that the vast majority of energy consumers still operate through a metering system, which merely estimates a household's energy consumption. It is impossible through that method of billing for the individual consumer or household accurately to measure their energy output on a month-by-month basis, let alone do so day by day or hour by hour.
	I should like to mention my constituent Derek Lickorish. Formerly the chief operations officer for EDF Energy in Hove, he has also been an advocate of smart metering systems for an amazing 25 years. Mr. Lickorish has seen both the benefits and the obstacles that need to be overcome before such a system for household energy management could be installed in every home. Currently, some energy companies offer consumers the choice of installing smart meters in their homes. Although some companies have agreed to sign up to such a scheme, others have not, which means that should a household change energy supplier, the smart meter would be removed. Smart meters are also currently quite expensive.

Colin Challen: Does my hon. Friend agree with the proposal that in the meantime, before smart metering is introduced, it would be right to insist that electricity supply companies provide their customers with electricity display devices? They have already demonstrated that energy consumption is reduced if consumers can simply see how much it costs them.

Celia Barlow: I shall get on to a related point about smart boxes in a moment.
	In order for a smart metering system to be truly effective, it would require the co-operation of all the energy suppliers in the UK. One way to circumvent that problem would be to introduce smart boxes into our homes. They would enable an individual to trace every single light that was switched on in their house, and to measure the resulting carbon cost. For the first time, the consumer would be able to make a real, measured assessment of their household energy consumption. This is one possible alternative to smart meters.
	Many of our leading media and internet providers have already considered introducing smart boxes that could be linked to the internet to provide solid data on our energy consumption. That would make the measuring of such data much easier. If, however, we were to opt for smart metering, the organisation required would present one of the industry's biggest challenges. The energy suppliers' trade association has prepared a smart metering operational framework. However, it represents only the suppliers view. A new organisation consisting of suppliers, distribution network operators, the national grid, Ofgem and, of course, the Government would have to be set up. The involvement of communications experts and providers would also be important.
	Legal competition issues are judged by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and by Ofgem to be preventing the creation of an understanding of a reliable and cost-effective two-way communication system from authorised parties to the metering device and from the metering device to other components of the system.

Martin Horwood: Another measure that would transform the domestic energy sector that we fully support is feed-in tariffs. Does the hon. Lady support them?

Celia Barlow: That is a very interesting idea. However, smart meters would be needed for that.

David Kidney: She says that it is a good idea.

Celia Barlow: It is a good idea.
	If the issues to which I have just referred can be resolved, we could, for the first time, open the way for householders to have good information on which to make decisions and potentially reduce their consumption, thereby helping to meet the Government's aspirations for carbon reduction.
	I agreed wholeheartedly with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister who said in his recent speech on climate change that aspiration presents a wonderful opportunity for our nation and, more importantly, for our economy. Too often, the debate on climate change revolves around what we will need to give up in order to meet our targets. This has often led the discussion down a very negative routenot least todayand that is counter-productive to achieving our goals. I am greatly encouraged by the Prime Minister's commitment to look again at the 60 per cent. target with a view to raising it to 80 per cent, which I would support.
	For many, the arguments surrounding climate change are nothing more than an abstract concept with little or no bearing on their day-to-day lives. Others, however, have a genuine awareness and a willingness to modify their energy output, but the tools to enable them to do so are not always there. That is why I believe that the introduction of smart meters or smart boxes would be a major step forward in reducing our individual carbon footprints. By empowering the individual, we also create a sense of collective responsibility.
	It is in our nature constantly to strive to move forward and to innovate in order to reach the next level of our technological evolution. Now is the time for the Government to highlight what we as a nation, and as a planet, can gain from meeting the challenge of carbon reduction. A recent poll carried out by the BBC of 22,000 people in 21 countries found that 70 per cent. of them were prepared to change their lifestyle because of climate change. The Government need to do everything within their power to enable them to do so. We are the first country to devise a scheme for quantifying our carbon footprint. Let us now continue to lead the way by introducing a scheme that, in conjunction with the proposals already set out in the Queen's Speech and by the Prime Minister on Monday, will enable us all to measure our household energy consumption on a minute-by-minute basis. Only by measuring where we are will we know how far we have come and how far we have yet to go.

Michael Jack: As this debate reveals, there is no shortage of technology and ideas for dealing with climate change. Stern and the United Nations have recently counselled us, and we are aware of the scope and scale of the project, but as a number of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee reports have shown, and as my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) said in his powerful speech, there is a dearth of urgency to get on and achieve this result.

David Kidney: Does the right hon. Gentleman therefore condemn the Conservative-controlled councils around the country that are holding up the establishment of wind farms?

Michael Jack: I do not think that is what I had in mind. I applaud the fact that the Government are trying to make it easier for some of the new technologies to be adopted. Obviously we have to look at individual issues and individual circumstances, but we must remain committed to the widespread application of renewable energy.
	One of the issues that has come to the attention of the Select Committee as it has examined this question is the complexity and the number of Government Departments involved. I suggest to the Minister that, if the United Kingdom wants further to strengthen its leading position on climate change in international forums, the time has now come to have one Minister responsible for climate change who should have Cabinet status. I have made a list of the Departments involved in this issue: the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, the Department for Transport, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Treasury, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Foreign Office. We shall shortly also have the office for climate change and the climate change committee. All of those, and other Departments as well, will have a finger in the pie. However, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, we often find the Government going off in different directions on issues such as transport. There is therefore a real need for a single person reporting to Cabinet with that responsibility.

Martin Horwood: The right hon. Gentleman mentions different directions, but does he acknowledge that some interesting different directions have been taken by the Conservatives today on aviation policy? Does he agree with the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) and me that we need to try to constrain the growth of aviation across Europe?

Michael Jack: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to tackle the issue of aviation emissions, although we might have differences of opinion on the way in which it should be done. The Select Committee's reports have advocated the development of an aviation biofuel. I am also aware of the Royal Aeronautical Society's initiative known as Green by Design, which contains some very interesting ideas on other ways in which aviation emissions could be dealt with.

Nick Hurd: Does my right hon. Friend understand why my constituents in the borough of Hillingdon should feel utterly perplexed, having first heard from the Government that climate change is the greatest challenge of all time, and now having seen the green light being given to the fastest growing source of emissions through the expansion of Heathrow airport, which will undermine their quality of life?

Michael Jack: Speaking as a Member who represents the north-west of England, I am aware that Manchester airport has offered a lifeline by pointing out that more services could go from there to utilise the additional capacity of its second runway, thus helping to address the issue, while not ducking the question of aviation emissions.
	Aviation gets the panning, but what about emissions from the maritime sector? I wish people would spend as much time focusing on what comes out of the funnels of all the dirty ships in the world as they spend examining what comes out of the tailpipes of aircraft. Ships are, if anything, greater emitters, yet they sneak around and do not get the whip from those who wish to see transport play a greater part in reducing our emissions.
	Having advocated the appointment of a single Cabinet Minister to be in charge of climate change, I wish that DEFRA would be more candid about the multiplicity of targets that we have to hit in the United Kingdom. The Select Committee strongly supported the Climate Change Bill, but we must recognise that we are already running behind time in regard to meeting the target of a 60 per cent. reduction in emissions, never mind the stronger 80 per cent. target that the Committee has advocated. The Minister should think about communicating to the country the reason why we are behind time in that way, and what our citizens, our companies and our Government need to do to play catch-up and get us back on track.
	I was disappointed by the Government's reply to our report. They would not agree to provide some form of trajectory to enable people to measure progress towards the intermediate and final targets. That might involve a move away from absolute targeting on an annual basis, but we need to be able to track progress. The arguments put forward in the Government's reply were, to say the least, very thin indeed.
	Today's debate has been occasioned by the Bali conference and the latest findings of the United Nations, but the one thing that the Minister did not tell us was what is being done internationally to try to ensure that the United States comes on board once and for all and publicly. It is all very well for us in the House of Commons to come up with comforting ideas on what we can do domestically and in Europe, where there is commitment to dealing with climate change, but there is no point in our doing so if the world's biggest polluter is not publicly on board. I applaud the efforts of various Senators and the state of California, and the market for emissions in the north-east of the United States, but unless the United States Government are convinced and committed, now and in the future, no amount of good international discussion will move the world forward and enable it to deal with this global phenomenon.
	The United Nations and Stern have spelled out the international consequences of inactivity, and against such a powerful scientific background I find it profoundly worrying that we have no consensus. I cannot believe that there are not individuals in China, India and the other countries that have not signed up to Kyoto who are worried, as we are, about the international consequences of inactivity. That is why having a single powerful individual in our Government to deal with the matter might increase our ability to influence the international stage if Bali is to be a success.
	In our report Climate change: 'the citizen's agenda', the Select Committee set considerable store by local action. One of the things that worries me even about the Prime Minister's latest initiative on access to information, which I welcome, is the fact that we are still in top-down mode. We put information up and hope that it will flutter down and that the citizen will pick it up and do something. In my constituency, I am working hard with many partnersthe regional development agency, the Environment Agency, local authorities, local businesses and schoolsto make ours the most energy-efficient borough in the country. However our initiative, known as FLoWEFylde Low Waste and Energyis finding it hard work. The local authority does not have the budget or the resources to implement homespun but none the less committed action on climate change.
	Our Committee went down to Woking to see the market leader in locally based activity. Its combined heat and power scheme makes one wonder why it is so difficult for the Wokings of the world to have their way. I ask the Minister please to consider carefully what could be done to stimulate more bottom-up activity in this countryto make it more possible for local authorities to become involved in the commerce of climate change, and to let the citizen play an informed part in meeting the challenge of putting the country back on track in terms of its targets.

Phil Woolas: I thank Members for their contributions, which demonstrated that we made the right decision in providing opportunities for topical debates. Let me begin with the last of those contributions. I think it important that the Chairman of our Select Committeeespecially as he is a Conservativesaid what he did about the policy of the United States of America. I thank him for and congratulate him on those remarks.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Ms Barlow) made an important speech about smart metering, which was mentioned by others as well. It is important for us to roll out smart metering. The Government are currently analysing responses to consultation, and we will make announcements soon; but clearly, as has been pointed out, the ability to measure in itself affects behaviour, and may be relevant to some of the other steps that we have discussed.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Rothwell (Colin Challen) welcomed the principles espoused by the United Kingdom as we move towards the Bali process. He commented on the importance of the World Bank mechanism, correctly identifying that as our policy, and warned us not to rely exclusively on the role of markets. He is right to acknowledge the importance of other mechanisms.
	I remind the House that our international action is not just the rhetoric of which the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) accused us. I do not think that $1.5 billion is rhetoric. We have established our international environment transformation fund, and in many countries around the world we are already engaged in real on-the-ground projects.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Kidney) made a powerful call in respect of skills needs. I believe we should replicate across the country the example that he is setting in his constituency, including the mechanisms that operate in various colleges and institutions. We need to talk to colleagues in Whitehall about this, but my hon. Friend is right to say that the policy must become real in terms of increased jobs and opportunities.
	The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) welcomed some of our policies, but said that we had faffed around. I do not think the Committee chaired by the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) has been faffing around; I think it has engaged in good consultation, and we have listened to some of it. The hon. Gentleman praised St. Pancras. The reason why there are fewer flights from Manchester is that there are faster trains to Euston, and I think that the same is true of flights from Paris to London. I do not accept the point about my constituents not being able to fly; they have as much right to fly as everyone else.
	The right hon. Member for Fylde knows that I acknowledge his expertise and commitment. The central point is that we must change the way in which we do things. Our message to our people is not that they must stop doing things; it is a question of the type of fuel that we use, the type of vehicle that we use and the mix of transport that we use. We believe that action works only in the context of two things: a carbon market so that emissions can be traded
	 It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings, the motion lapsed, without Question put, pursuant to Temporary Standing Order (Topical debates).

Orders of the Day

Sale of Student Loans Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Bill Rammell: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	The Bill concerns the prudent management of one of the Government's public assets, the student loan book. Before I deal with its provisions, I will briefly explain the context and why the Bill is being introduced now.
	The Government strongly believe that talent and hard work, not social background or where a person went to school, should determine success in life. We believe that no one should be held back from realising his or her potential at university because of fears of financial hardship. That is why we have been systematically breaking down the financial barriers to higher education.
	First, we changed the nature of student loans, linking repayments directly to graduate earnings, and started collection through straightforward payroll deduction alongside income tax and national insurance once the graduate is in work and earning. Secondly, no home full-time undergraduate studying for their first degree has to pay tuition fees before they study, because there are now loans for fees. Thirdly, we have reintroduced non-repayable maintenance grants for students from low-income backgrounds, and last July my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced a significantly enhanced new financial support package for students, under which from next year two thirds of students will be eligible for non-repayable grants. In addition, we have ensured that universities are paying out non-repayable bursaries.
	Fourthly, the package that we announced for next year offers a guarantee to those in receipt of the educational maintenance allowance that if they are receiving it at the age of 16, they will be guaranteed the amount of money they will get in student financial support when they go to university. We are also introducing for the first time the option of a loan repayment holiday of up to five years to allow flexibility and choice in repayment.

Phil Willis: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so soon. I did not realise that he was going to introduce the debate by outlining some of the measures to be taken. What arrangements will the Government make to give part-time students the same access to loans as full-time students, and also to extend that to both further education and adult students?

Bill Rammell: We are introducing the adult learning grants, which give for the first time an equivalent commitment to the education maintenance allowance. I am not in the business today of making future announcements, but I will say for the record that before this Government came to power there was no financial support whatever for part-time students. We were the first Government to institute a part-time student grant, and 18 months ago we increased that by 27 per cent. We also substantially increased the access to learning fund, initially from 3 million to 12 million. There are further challenges for us to face up to, but we have a good track record on this issue.

David Chaytor: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the package of measures introduced this summer, which have made a fundamental difference in the level of student support. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State deserves great credit for taking this issue up so swiftly. Does my hon. Friend agree that although this will be of huge benefit to all Members' constituents, it is important to communicate the changes? What steps is my hon. Friend taking to ensure that students learn directly of the new package of measures, and also that tutors in schools and colleges are as well briefed as possible this autumn when students make their choices for next year's university entrance?

Bill Rammell: I can certainly give assurances on that. We have launched a major communication campaign to get across the facts about the new system, including through TV, radio and online advertising. We have also made available a DVD setting out the facts for advisers and students. It is available to Members of Parliament as well, if they wish to engage actively in this process and inform their constituents.
	In terms of this substantially enhanced package, it is worth saying for the record that those who predicted that the introduction of variable fees would lead to a reduction in the number of people applying to universityand particularly in the number of those from poorer backgroundsare being proved emphatically wrong. Entry to university this autumn by English students is 6 per cent. higher than last year, and a higher proportion are from poorer backgrounds.
	There is now a developing consensus in the House. The Conservative party has shifted its position from opportunistic opposition to the Government stance, which we welcome; they now support our position. Even the Liberal Democrats appear to be moving. I have always said that people should judge politicians not by what they say, but by what they do, and in government in Scotland the Liberal Democrats supported a system of postgraduate repayment that is absolutely no different in principle from the system that we have in England. I understand that they are now reviewing their position for England, and one of their think-tanks has even advocated outright support for the Government's position. Therefore, I think we are creating a settled consensus.

Sarah Teather: The Minister has eventually goaded me to my feet. He knows full well that the changes in Scotland are not the same as those in England. The loan system there is not to pay for fees, so I think he should be careful in what he says.

Bill Rammell: All I will say to the hon. Lady is that exactly the same principle of postgraduate repayment applies in England and Scotland: the former student has to pay something back once they are in work and earning. That needs to be said for the record, because in the past we have often heard from the Liberal Democrats of their opposition to fees, whereas in reality they support that principle of postgraduate repayment.
	The Government believe these reforms, alongside increased investment in higher education and the hard work of students and educators around the country, have helped increase participation in higher education to the highest ever level in this country. I am confident that it will rise further, and that is both socially and economically imperative.
	We should be proud of our record of breaking down the financial barriers to education and widening participation, but that also brings an interesting challenge. As participation has grown, so too has the size of the Government-owned student loan book. According to the latest figuresthose for the year 2006-07the English loan book was valued at 18.1 billion. Of that, about 17 billion was accounted for by the new income-contingent loans repaid through Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. We firmly expect that the loan book will increase appreciably in the coming years. That projected growth makes it all the more important to give careful consideration to how best we can handle this large and growing public asset. The Bill concerns how the student loan book can best be managed.

Phil Willis: This is a rerun of the debate that took place in 1997. I am sure that the Minister will recall the first student loans portfolio Bill, and I shall ask him something that I asked then. Will he put on record, at the start of this debate, the discounted rate at which the loan will be able to be sold off? Will it be 10, 15, 20 or 25 per cent.? In other words, how much is the Treasury prepared to give away in order to get this loan portfolio off its balance sheet and on to somebody else's?

Bill Rammell: The previous sales demonstrated value for money. I shall not reveal a discount rate today, but I shall set out the value-for-money framework within which we will make those judgments. Were we to reveal the discount rate today, in what will be a competitive bidding process for people to purchase the debt, we would reveal our hand at the start of the process and fail to maximise the revenue to the public sector.

Phil Willis: rose

Bill Rammell: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman one last time, and then I must make some progress.

Phil Willis: As always, the Minister is engaging with the debate, and I compliment him on that. Will he therefore give us the discount rate for the 1997 sale? That is a retrospective matter rather than one that deals with what is being planned for this sale.

Bill Rammell: I do not have that figure at my fingertips, but following this debate I shall happily write to the hon. Gentleman and set it out for the record.
	Transferring ownership of large parts of the English loan book will allow us to reduce the risk of continuing to hold the loans on the Government's balance sheet, and is expected to realise an initial 6 billion in receipts over the next three years. Having commissioned expert external advice from the financial sector, we believe that we will be able to conduct sales at a price that represents good value for money for the taxpayer. I think that we can achieve that.

Tim Boswell: The Minister related the sale to the Government's balance sheet. I am no technician in this matter, but am I right in saying that the extent of the student loan book is not netted against the public sector borrowing requirement, which is the conventional measure of changes in the public sector's balance sheet? Therefore, when account is taken of commitments such as the golden rule on economic management, what is being done today is not strictly relevant at all.

Bill Rammell: It is relevant. This mechanism has been supported by the Conservativesindeed, the Leader of the Opposition supported it when we announced it in the previous Budget. Through this mechanism we are transferring risk from the public sector to the private sector, and in doing so, we are realising a capital receipt that can go back into the Consolidated Fund and used for other Government spending purposes. That is an important achievement.
	I need to make one precise point clear at this stage. The Government will retain control of regulations, terms and conditions for all loans, and there will be no adverse change for borrowers, whether their loan is sold or retained.

Andrew Smith: I welcome the Minister's commitment on that point. He is right that we should be clear on this matter. Will he assure present and future students that nothing in the Bill or in this transfer could result in information being passed to financial or marketing companies, and that the private sector can count on no such gain in its estimate of what it is prepared to pay?

Bill Rammell: I am happy to confirm that to my right hon. Friend, who I know has a long-standing interest in student affairs and in advocating the students' case. For the record, purchasers will not be able to access any wider range of personal data or use personal data for any purpose other than administering student loans.

John Hayes: On the last point, before the Minister moves on to another exciting aspect of the Bill, can he clarify whether the safeguards sought by the right hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) are in the Bill and will be part of the terms of salethe contractor whether they will be covered by some other parliamentary mechanism, such as guidance or a statutory instrument?

Bill Rammell: I refer the hon. Gentleman to clause 6(4), which clearly states that personal information can be disclosed and used only
	for purposes in connection with a transferred loan.
	I might add that his definition of exciting clearly differs from mine.
	The House will be aware that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made a statement on Tuesday on the breach of procedures that led to personal data relating to child benefit going missing from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. My right hon. Friend rightly stated that that was an extremely serious failure by HMRC in its responsibility to the public. He also stated that immediate steps had been and were being taken to prevent that from happening again.
	The Government take the protection of personal data, in whatever form, extremely seriously, and student loan data are no exception. The provisions catering for the sharing of HMRC information in the Bill will strengthen the framework for legal protection of HMRC data in respect of all loans, whether sold or unsold. The Bill will extend an existing criminal sanction prohibiting the wrongful disclosure of HMRC information outside the terms of the legislative gateway.

Peter Bone: Is the Minister saying that the Bill includes legal sanctions for the misuse of data?

Bill Rammell: As I said, we will extend the legal protection of HMRC data in respect of all loans, whether sold or unsold, and we will also extend an existing criminal sanction prohibiting the wrongful disclosure of HMRC information outside the terms of the legislative gateway. I am sure that hon. Members will wish to explore that point in Committee.

Tim Boswell: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again, but this is obviously a matter of great and current concern. Can he assure the House that in cases in which an official of HMRC or some other person has wrongly disclosed information, and an element of culpability in the management of that official has enabled the information to get out, the Government or the commissioners willat least in principlecompensate individuals to the extent of their actual pecuniary loss for the leak of their personal information?

Bill Rammell: I need to be careful and precise about this, but the Chancellor set out those reassurances in his statement on Tuesday, and a review is taking place.
	Following the statement on Tuesday, Lord Triesman, the Minister responsible for intellectual property, has asked the Student Loans Company to review its operations and data management processes. No breaches of data protection protocols have occurred in respect of student loan administration. Furthermore, we are certain that no data have gone missing in respect of student loan administration. HMRC has initiated a wide-ranging review of its security processes and procedures, and so naturally we are doing so for student loans, as are all other Departments for their data management processes.
	HMRC has temporarily suspended its data-sharing operations with the SLC in respect of student loans while the measures described by the Chancellor are being put in place. However, repayments are continuing to be deducted from borrowers in the usual manner.

John Hayes: I apologise to the Minister for these persistent interruptions and I am grateful for his tolerance, but these are sensitive and topical matters. He has given us an assurance that checks have been made on the situation: I welcome that and acknowledge his diligence. However, the issue is surely whether the protocols will be in place, unaltered and with the same level of protection, under the proposed arrangements. If he can give us that assurance, Members on both sides of the House will rest more easily.

Bill Rammell: The best, most effective protocols possible will apply to both Government owned debt and privately owned debt. There will be no distinction and no difference in the way in which these matters are treated between the public and the private sector.
	The idea of selling student loans is not new. The Government have successfully sold tranches of student loans in the past. In 1998 and 1999 there were two sales of the old mortgage-style student loans for a total of around 2 billion. The Government believe that there will be an appetite for these assets in the marketplace in respect of the Bill, not only because of the previous sales, but because of the distinctive characteristics that make student loans an attractive purchase. The loans would provide an investor with access to a new instrument with unique characteristics, allowing them further to diversify their portfolio, and a sustained income over a long period from a group of borrowers who, when taken as a whole, are considered relatively low-risk. Those features make the student loans an attractive candidate for purchase by a wide range of potential investors.
	All transactions will be subject to a rigorous assessment that we are achieving good value for money. In making that assessment, the Government will examine the prevailing market conditions and ensure that a competitive market for the loans has been generated. The Government will also provide the market with full information about the loan book in order that the assets can be efficiently valued. The Government will ensure that there has been a genuine transfer of risk from the public accounts to the private sector. The Government will assess the proceeds that look likely to be achieved in the transaction, using full and clear market information and a comparison with keeping the loans on their books, in terms of both likely income flows and levels of risk. As with the previous loan sales, the Government will draw on specialist advice from within Departments and from appropriate external sources. We will draw on NAO guidance in our approach to assessing value for money, and these judgments will of course rightly be subject to scrutiny by the NAO in due course.
	Making a sound judgment about the timing and pricing of sales is particularly important given the recent turbulence in world credit and financial markets. It is not possible to predict the potential market conditions in the future, and the market conditions will naturally vary for different sales in a long-term programme, which is what we are talking about. Our intention is that portions of the loan book would be sold at regular intervals as part of an ongoing programme, and we will closely monitor the market so that sales can be made at the right time. Decisions will, rightly, always be informed by what provides the best value for money for the taxpayer.
	The 1998 legislation, which enabled the previous sales, has been repealed, and so cannot be amended to enable sales of income-contingent loans. We are therefore introducing this Sale of Student Loans Bill, which will allow sales to take place while protecting the interests of all borrowers regardless of whether their loan is sold or retained. I give borrowers this reassurance: purchasers of loans will not be able to charge a different rate of interest; they will not be able to change the income threshold for repayments; and they will not be able to use a borrower's personal details for any purpose beyond that which is required for management of the loans.

David Chaytor: On that final point, does the Minister mean that the purchaser of the loan will not be able to change the interest rate without the approval of the Government? Can he confirm that this will not in any way restrict a future Government's decisions over the appropriate interest rate?

Bill Rammell: That is correct, although I should state for the record that we have no plans to do so. Yes, that responsibility rightly rests with the Government.

Adam Afriyie: Clearly, Northern Rock has got into serious financial difficulties recently, as we are all aware. If a purchaser of the loan book got into serious difficulty or undertook unacceptable practices, what safeguards are there that the Government would have any control over that situation?

Bill Rammell: We have detailed external advice that there is a secure market for this kind of transaction. I think we can go forward with confidence on that basis.
	Several Members want to speak, so I shall move to a conclusion. Clause 1 allows the Government to sell some or all of our obligations relating to student loans, while retaining the power to require that purchasers administer the loans in a way that meets our requirements. Clause 2 gives the Secretary of State flexibility to include provisions in sales contracts to ensure that borrowers' interests are fully protected. That means that borrowers of sold loans will be entitled to the same process of mediation to which all borrowers currently have access, further underlining the Government's commitment to ensure that all borrowers are treated equally. The next two clauses extend that principle.
	Clause 5 allows the Government to insist that the Student Loans Company continue to fulfil its current functions and remain the institution that will contact borrowers about their loans. That is important. Clause 7 explicitly confirms an existing understanding that all student loans are exempt from the terms of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 because their characteristics differ substantially from commercial loans. In Clause 8, the Bill provides powers for Welsh Ministers in respect of Wales, equivalent to those it proposes for the Secretary of State in relation to England.

Roger Williams: As I understand it, the powers given to Ministers in the Welsh Assembly are known as mirror powers, not the framework powers usually associated with legislation such as the Bill. Mirror powers are limiting and only allow Welsh Ministers to proceed in exactly the same way as Ministers in the UK. Has the Minister received any representations about changing the mirror powers to framework powers?

Bill Rammell: I have received no such representations.
	In conclusion, when the House last considered student loans the matter was of some controversy. In contrast, this is a short and mainly technical enabling Bill, and I hope that its purpose will not be misunderstood. Its provisions have no relation to future decisions on broader student finance policy, and will have no impact on the manner in which students can obtain financial support for their time in higher education; rather, the Bill enables the Government to manage efficiently a large and growing asset, and on that basis I hope it will be supported.
	I commend the Bill to the House.

John Hayes: I had not expected the Minister to begin his peroration with a short statement in general terms on access to higher education. As he did so, however, may I briefly say that the Conservative party and the Conservative education team in Parliament are dedicated to the principle of widening access to higher education by all means? In that regard, and to reflect the intervention of the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), may I add that one of the best ways of widening access is to look at modes of learning as well as at other factors? Part-time learning, modular learning and distance learning have a vital role to play in the mission of widening access and participation. However, that might be a debate for another day, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall address the matters before us.
	We welcome the principle behind the Bill. As the Minister said, it transfers risks from the public to the private sector, but in a measured and careful way. Indeed, as the Minister and the House will know, at the last two general elections the Conservatives advocated similar plans, so it is ironic that the Minister suggests that we are imitating the Governmentironic that the Government's plan for the sale of student loans appears to be on loan from the Conservative party. However, when we announced our plans, we proposed that the money raised should be used to endow universitiesa point to which I shall return.
	The Bill is short and, seemingly, straightforward, but I want to bring a number of issues to the House's attention. They will no doubt be scrutinised in detail in Committee and when the Bill goes through its other stages before becoming law.

Phil Willis: Does the hon. Gentleman not think it odd that the Minister's excellent presentation of the Bill missed out a key areawhat will happen to the money? Does the hon. Gentleman feel, as I do, that as the Bill is a Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills matter and the money is collected from university students, at least some proportion of it should be guaranteed for the support of higher education? That may accord with his theme on endowments, although I would not necessarily agree with that specific policy.

John Hayes: Far be it from me to make a spending commitment on behalf of the Opposition. I have been around too long to be seduced into going down a road that it would not be in my interests to travel, but I will return to the matter that he raises in general terms later during my, I hope, relatively short speechat least, short by my standards.
	According to the explanatory notes to the Bill, the intention is to enable
	a programme of sales of student loans, as announced in paragraph 6.42 of the 2007 Budget Report.
	Indeed, the Minister made reference to that. Paragraph 6.42 states that the sale of part of the student loan book
	will raise around 6 billion by the end of 2010-11.
	We have already discussed the turbulence in the financial markets. The Minister will appreciate that there are understandable concerns therefore about whether this is the best time to conduct such a sale. I suspect that he knows well that it is not, and I hope that he will comment on that when he responds to the debate.
	The student loan book was valued at about 18.1 billion at the end of the 2006-07 financial year, but I have no doubt that the Minister will have estimated the face value of the book in 2007-08. He has already suggested that further projections have been madeindeed, projections was the word that he used. It would be useful in considering the Bill if the House were to have some feel for the nature of those projections. It is true that there are commercial sensitivities, but if we are to consider the Bill with the proper diligence that the House and the hon. Members currently represented here certainly would wish us to do, we should have some sense of the notional estimates that the Government have made and that their advisers have offered. Will the Minister therefore say a little more about those projections? The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough intervened on that subject when the Minister was on his feet.
	I appreciate that it is not necessarily the Government's intention to conduct the sale at the moment, but there are good reasons to be concerned that a sale might be rushed and the taxpayer consequently short-changed. Figures released this week show that public sector borrowing stands at 24.2 billion in the financial year to datethe highest figure for the first seven months of the year since 1994-95, and 6.7 billion worse than last year.

Tim Boswell: Before my hon. Friend leaves the point, will he remind the House that the former Chancellor of the Exchequernow, of course, the Prime Ministertook it upon himself to sell off a large chunk of the Government's gold stock in extremely adverse conditions, far ahead of what was possibly appropriate?

John Hayes: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his advice. There is nothing worse when speaking from the Dispatch Box than for an altogether more sagacious colleague to intervene and anticipate the next few lines of one's speech, is there not? My hon. Friend, who is always one step ahead of me, has done just that, for I was going to point out

Phil Willis: rose

John Hayes: An equally sagacious colleague is about to anticipate the next line but one of my speech.

Phil Willis: I am trying to encourage the hon. Gentleman, when he gives the answer to the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), to include in his remarks what happened in September 1992, when a former Chancellor, Lord Lamont, lost 15 billion in a week.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not wish to interrupt the debate, but I encourage the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) not to go too far down either of those roads.

John Hayes: Mischievous voices in the House are encouraging me to do things that you would not want me to do, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I will not allow them to have their way.
	It is important for the Minister to assure the House that the sale of student loans will not be rushed to fill a hole in the public finances. It is true that we have had some experience of that kind. Our fears are legitimised by those sorry experiencesthose of the kind mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell).
	The Minister must also explain how the estimate of 6 billion has come about. With an estimated face value of 18.1 billion, what mechanisms were used to arrive at the estimated 6 billion, which is what the Government say is likely to be raised, for the sale of the loan book? What proportion of the asset do the Government estimate they will need to sell to raise 6 billion? What is the expected time scale for the sale of the loan book, and what are the notional volumes? The Minister said that the Government were likely to sell the loan book off in parts, but he gave us no feel for what estimate had been made of the timetable for that or the size of the parts. Again, one appreciates that there are commercial necessities in this regard, but the House deserves a little more information than we have had thus far.
	As the right hon. Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith) suggested, it is also important that the House and the wider public are absolutely assured about any possible impact on students. The Minister has been helpful in that regard, both privately in briefings and today in the House. However, let us be frank: there will be fears and worries about this matter among existing students, potential students, families and so on. Anything that disincentivises people who have the capacity and potential to study at university or college needs to be countered. Those assurances will need to be made repeatedly during the passage of the Bill.
	The explanatory notes state:
	No aspect of this Bill will create a material impact on borrowers, higher education institutions or employers.
	As a result, no regulatory impact assessment has been prepared or published. However, clause 5(2), which covers repayments, states that
	regulations or arrangements may provide for...collection by a person acting on behalf of a loan purchaser.
	Will the Minister clarify whether there is any intention to involve anyone else, besides the Student Loans Company, in the collection of repayments? If there is not, I am not entirely clear why that provision has been included.
	It would also be useful if the Minister told the House whether any assessment had been made of the likely purchaser of the loans. He made it clear that there is a market. He has also told the House this afternoon that the Government have taken expert advice on the subject, as one would expect. I would also expect him to give the House some feel for the sort of organisation that might purchase the book. Where are those organisations located? Are they overseas companies, international companies or domestic organisations? What is their track record? Who is likely to be involved? He does not have to stray into the area of commercial sensitivities, which would jeopardise the sale, to give us some reassurance about how he thinks things might work out.

Tim Boswell: rose

John Hayes: I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend, who is doubtless about to anticipate my summation.

Tim Boswell: I doubt that very much, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Does he think that there are legitimate concerns about the possibility of secondary, or indeed tertiary, sales to indeterminate groups of people? Drawing an analogy with the collateralised debt obligations, for example, there is a real possibility that, however much the Secretary of State wishes to protect students, control of the loan book will be lost to persons unknown and highly divergent from the ones to whom it was originally sold.

John Hayes: My hon. Friend is right: the book is likely to be sold on. That is the nature of this kind of business. The absolute assurance that the House seeks is that nothing is likely to occur that will jeopardise the circumstances of students or institutions of higher education. It would be difficult for any Minister, of any party, to predict how the situation might pan out. The book could be sold on over a period of years. However, allowing for that difficulty, some feel for the sort of advice that the Government have been given, some understanding of the projections they have made, and some estimate of how they expect matters to be concluded, is the least the House deserves. The House will certainly want that, both today and during our further scrutiny of the Bill.
	As the Minister will appreciate, another issue on which there is widespread public concern is data protection. We had a useful exchange on that earlier. Clause 6 extends previous legislation to allow data about borrowers that is held by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to be passed to loan purchasers, or potential purchasers. The Bill makes it clear that where information is shared with potential purchasers for the purpose of considering the purchase, details must be anonymised, but of course recent difficulties were about not theory, but practice. It may be necessary for the Minister to reflect on events and consider those details once again. I do not expect him to come up with an answer off the cuff today, but we might usefully consider the issue during the passage of the Bill.
	In the light of recent events, I would not be surprised if we came to a conclusion that was agreeable to Members across the House to strengthen protection. That would be helpful to Government, to the House, and to people affected by the legislation. It is our intention to scrutinise closely that aspect of the Bill and, if necessary, to propose amendments, if we feel that data protection is not adequately dealt with in the measures before the House. I do not want to stray into further discussion on the loss, disclosed by the Chancellor, of the details of 25 million benefit recipients. We had a word about it earlier, and it is unfair to rub salt in the wounds; I would be the last person to do that. However, I know that the Minister will have heard the story with horror, knowing that he was coming before the House today to debate the issue before us. He will be very sensitive about it, so I expect him to offer the House and the public reassurance that he will tighten the provisions of the Bill, in the same spirit as that in which I offered to assist. We have a history of working together on legislation to best effect.
	On the proceeds of the salea matter raised by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresboroughthere are no provisions in the Bill for the hypothecation of proceeds for reinvestment in higher education. We can therefore assume that the receipts will swell the Consolidated Fund, as the Minister confirmed that in reply to an intervention. I am certain that he will today wish to pledge to the House that higher education will get its fair share of the windfall. He would not be sticking up for his brief and defending those over whom he has stewardship if he did not do that. I would like to hear him make that firm commitment before the end of today's proceedings.
	I would like the Minister to speak in a little more detail, with full technical embellishments, about the position regarding Wales. He has a bit of a recordnot a happy one, it has to be saidwhen it comes to dealing with legislation relating to Wales. Some of us remember the Further Education and Training Bill. It will worry him to hear that I have already received representations about the aspects of the Bill relating to Wales, on matters that were mentioned by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams). We need to be assured that those matters have been taken fully into account. Again, we will want to scrutinise that in some detail in Committee. As the Minister will recall, procedural concerns were raised with regard to the extension of powers to the Welsh Assembly when we discussed the Further Education and Training Act 2007; that was when we last faced each other in discussions on legislation.
	This is the second time in the space of a few weeks that I have faced the Minister on an occasion when he has felt obliged to adopt Conservative ideas. The first occasion was when, in a damascene conversion, he accepted Conservative arguments about the Learning and Skills Council's intervention powers in further education colleges. Once again today, a Conservative idea is being embraced by the Minister. It is often suggested that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but as Adlai Stevenson once said, Flattery is all right so long as you don't inhale.

Austin Mitchell: The Minister will not face much dissent and argument today. It is not as if the House is rising against him. It is clear that the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes), who expressed his support for the Bill at some length, if I may say soin fact, I would suggest to him that he record his speeches on a CD and pop them in the postdid not say that the Bill would be opposed. I wait with excitement to hear what the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), will tell us, if she survives long enough to make a speechI was coughing in sympathy at one stage.
	The Bill is not contentious, but I have one or two criticisms that I shall put on the record. First, we are putting a lot of bundled debt, whether that is called collateralised debt obligations or structured investment vehicles, on to a market already saturated with such debt vehicles, which were the major cause of the problems that the markets began to face in August and are still facing. The market is choked up with bundled debt which is not immediately saleable. As soon as there is a credit squeeze or restriction, the Gadarene instinct of hedge fund managers to get out is impossible to realise. In the States, therefore, funds have closed down and there have been problems in this country with that debt.
	The Government intend to put a massive dollop of debt18 billionon to a market in such a state. It is not a good time to sell. The Minister said that he has had advice that it is saleable and will be well supported by the markets, but that reflects the self-interest of those who give the advice, who are mainly people connected with the markets, who want to see them expanded and used. I am worried on that account.
	If the debt is sold on, there is no restriction in the Bill, as far as I can see, on the purchaser selling it on to someone else. Where will the student loan fund end up?

Adam Afriyie: There is concern on that point and questions need to be answered. Financial debts are sold on the markets. Risks are sold on in markets. As it moves around the market, there is a possibility that the risk may end up within an institution that is underwritten or guaranteed by Government. It could have ended up on the books of Northern Rock, for example, in which case the taxpayer would be underwriting it. The hon. Gentleman raises an extremely important point.

Austin Mitchell: I am grateful for the intervention. It is possible not only that the debt will end up in the assets of a fund or organisation supported by Government, but that it will end up in the assets of a fund that is on the verge of collapse. A Government permission should be necessary for the transfer of the debt once it gets on to the market, because we cannot be sure where it will end up.
	Secondly, the measure is based purely on ideology and doctrine, according to which public debt is a bad thing and private debt is a marvellous thing. It is clear that financial markets object to public borrowing because they want the privatisation of all borrowing, as well as the privatisation of credit creation, which has happened to a large extent. There is no reason why the money should not stay on the public books. The only argument that the Government put is that it reduces the public sector borrowing requirement, but that effect is purely presentational. In the main, I would argue that public borrowing is good and private borrowing is often bad; the private debt situation has produced an enormous escalation of asset and house prices, while public debt and borrowing has produced investment and economic growth, and allowed the Government to steer the economy forward.
	The equation of public with bad and private with good is nonsense. There is no reason, ideologically, for such a transfer; there is no reason to sell the asset books. All that does is pretty up the PSBR figures. There is no guarantee that the money coming inthe Minister mentioned 6 billionwill be used for education. The National Union of Students, and the universities, I think, say that the money should go to education. I agree, but it will notit is just going to general Government funds.
	My third point is that the private sector is not buying the debt out of sheer altruism or a love of supporting the student loans programme and getting more people into university. It is doing it for solid commercial reasons, and it will have to be paid. In the current state of the market, it will have to be paid substantially more to take up the debt than it would had the crisis of August onwards not happened. It has to be well paid for the risks.
	And there are risks. I remember that when I was a university teacher in New Zealand, there was something called the post-primary student bursary, which gave students who committed themselves to going into teaching a teacher's wage to go through university. That was a marvellous institution that encouraged people to go to university. However, when the students left university, they disappeared; many went to teach in England to relieve the crisis in education at that timethis was the '60s. People in raincoats from the education department used to knock on my door and ask whether I knew where student Fred Bloggs was. I knew that Fred Bloggs had gone overseas, but did I know his address? Where did his parents live? Such situations give rise to problems.
	Two years ago, I purchased a fantastic palace in Grimsby and ever since I have been plagued with telephone calls from the Student Loans Company asking about the whereabouts of a girl whose name I shall not give. She was in receipt of a student loan and, apparently, absconded. I did not know the woman. She had never lived at the house; at least, nothing on the records of previous owners indicated her name. However, she had taken out a student loan and disappeared. Considerable expenditure will be necessary to trace such people and the private sector will want to be well rewarded. We may be getting money off the public books, but we will have to pay the private sector substantially to handle it.
	In passing, I should like to put a query to the Minister. I see from the Directgov website that European students from both the European Union and the European economic area are eligible for student loans if they
	have been living within the EEA and Switzerland for the three years immediately before the start of the course.
	The explanatory notes to the Bill discuss the recovery of
	student loans made to borrowers domiciled in England (and those studying in England but based overseas) at the time the loan was taken out.
	If there are problems, overseas students will be difficult to trace, assuming that they have gone back to their EU country; Turkish, Swiss and Norwegian students are also going to be eligible. All that will impose an extra cost. How will that be financed? When it takes over the loan book, will the private sector toughen up on all that, and what kind of charges will it impose on the Government for providing the services to trace people?
	Finally, I come to my main point, which relates to anxieties to which I am sure the Minister will respond. There is the issue of the terms of the student loans. We sensibly geared the interest rate to the retail price index as we do not want massive interest charges. That gearing has reduced the interest payable on loans throughout the long period of low inflation under this Government; indeed, it has reduced it substantially on the interest rates payable in the early 1990s under the Conservatives.
	However, inflation has gone up, although not because of anything that students have doneit is all due to utility prices. The interest rate is now 4.8 per cent.double last year's 2.4 per cent. I have had calls from parents in Grimsby warning me about this and saying that it will have a disastrous effect on their daughter's or son's finances. Assuming that a student loan averages 15,000, they will be paying 720 a year, or 60 a month, in interest before they even begin to pay off any of the debt. That will be a monstrous burden for people starting out in life; they will start life's race with a ball and chain on their foot. I hate to think of the prospect of a student who marries a student, with two student loans merged as a double burden on that household.
	This burden is completely unacceptable, and it is likely to get bigger. It will put people off taking out student loans and be a burden on those with loans who are starting out in life and might want to take out a mortgage, buy furniture or a car, or want to contract other debt. We have a debt-burdened society, and we are asking students to start out in it with a big debt already trailing behind them. It is not recoverable under the tribunals and enforcement legislation that we passed in the summer. That will become a political problem for my Government.
	The Minister said that it will be up to Government to vary the terms of student loans even after they have been privatised. I am glad to hear that, because they should wipe out the interest charges. I cite the precedent of the New Zealand Labour party, which promised in its 2005 election manifesto to write off interest on student loans, as it now has. The student gets a statement at the end of the year saying that a certain amount of interest is due, but it is written off and does not have to be paid. That was enormously effective and very necessary.

Phil Willis: Surely, even as a good socialist, the hon. Gentleman is not arguing that students should be given significant amounts of money interest-free by the Treasury so that they can put it on the money market and receive interest. Surely he does not think, even in his wildest dreams, that that is a good idea.

Austin Mitchell: I take that correction from a fellow socialist. Of course I do not envisage that students will put it on the money market; that is what the Government are doing, not what students will be doing. Students use the loan for living. In the previous generation before student loans existed, most students struggled with enormous overdrafts or credit card debts. I am saying that the burden of debt on students for educational purposesthe prime purpose of these loans is to pay the feesshould be written off, as long as they stay in this country. I do not want to extend it to people who leave this country and work elsewhere having used their degree to put themselves on an international market, as that would make the burden too heavy to bear.

Phil Willis: rose

Austin Mitchell: I am happy to give way to any more criticism from the left.

Phil Willis: I am trying to help the hon. Gentleman in his hour of need. Clearly there is no point in loaning somebody something for no interest at all; one might as well give the money directly to the university and not charge the fees in the first place.

Austin Mitchell: We could certainly do that. I hesitate, as a good West Riding man, to take help from Harrogate in any formit is usually class-biased, in my view. Money could be paid to the university, but we are talking about a debt incurred by the student, which they have to bear, and with which they should be helped. Ideally, they should all qualify for means-tested fees, as my generation did. The Government say that we cannot afford that, which is probably true. We cannot afford to finance with grants some 46 per cent. of the population going on to higher education. Only 4 per cent. of my generation did, and we all got grants. I had lots of doubts about kicking away that ladder, but having kicked it away, we have to try to help the students.
	Does the hon. Gentleman think that a burden of 4.8 per cent. is acceptable for students to carry? I do not know. I would be interested to hear the views of the Liberal Democrats on that. It is too high and too heavy. Something should be done about it, and I hope that the Government will. I am sorry for the diversion into the realms in which I have just been wandering, but we should think seriously as a Government and as a party about following the New Zealand example and writing off the interest payment for students.

John Gummer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Are you aware that because the Government have refused to make a statement on the new airport policy, copies of the document that were placed in this House have now run out? People who were not able to question the Minister have sought the document, and there are now none available. Is that really acceptable?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: As I understand it, 40 copies of that document were produced in the Vote Office. Clearly, those have now run out. It is not good enough for it not to be available to Members of Parliament who need it. I am sure that the Department is aware of what has happened, and I trust that it will put matters right as quickly as it possibly can.

Sarah Teather: By the looks of this packed House today, the Bill has generated enormous excitement and controversy in all parties. We will support the Bill, but we have a number of reservations that we would like to develop further in Committee, including the matter of how the Bill relates to Wales. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) hopes to catch your eye in a few minutes, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to raise that point.
	It is worth putting it on the record that my party would not have started from this point. The so-called asset that the Government seek to sell today is the burden of debt that they have imposed on students since they came to office. The total student debt of 18 billion is more than the gross domestic product of Slovenia, believe it or not. It represents a millstone around the neck of each student who has graduated under this Labour Government. The truth is that we do not really know what the implications of the debt will be for a whole cohort of graduates throughout their lives. We have been engaged in what essentially amounts to a giant experiment. We do not know what effect it will have on their career choices, or on their decisions about whether to have a family, get married or buy a home. We will not know that for another 10, or even 15 years, by which stage it will be too late for us to turn back the clock.
	Despite the Minister's assurances, many graduates now struggling to pay back their student debt on what are often quite low new graduate salaries remain concerned that the selling of the debt to a private company could be a precursor to raising the interest rates to commercial levels. I am pleased that the Minister denied that point on the record, but I wish that he would include it in the Bill, to reassure students who are likely to have their debts sold off in future, and graduates, who will be affected by this change.
	Graduates already face a hike in the interest rates on their loans this year. The rates have doubled to 4.8 per cent., as the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) mentioned, from 2.4 per cent. last year, due to the slightly bizarre way in which the Government calculate interest rates for student loans. It is not just that they use an entirely different inflation figure for students from the one they use for other purposes, but the rate is not even averaged over the year. It is set arbitrarily on the basis of one month in March. If that month happens to be one in which oil prices are running high, and there are hikes in utility bills, for the rest of that year students will pay the cost in their interest rates. Students are concerned that this is the beginning of a domino effect. They saw fees, then top-up feesand may assume the raising of the capand then the introduction of commercial interest rates. They would welcome the sort of assurance that I mentionedthe Minister including something clearly in the Bill to demonstrate the Government's future intentions. They can always amend it later. We have seen plenty of amending legislation from the Government in the past 10 years.
	The Minister is adamant that although his Department is leading on the Bill, it is not about higher education and will have no effect on students or universities. It is merely a short-term tactic to raise immediate revenue for the Treasury and to offload risk on to someone else. If we are to accept the Government's argument about offloading risk, are we sure that anyone would want to buy the student loan book? The loans are riskier than the mortgage-style loans that were sold, and it takes longer to pay them off. They were income contingent, so if income levels drop the loan repayments will dry up. Any investor would be gambling on the future of England's economy.

John Hayes: The hon. Lady and I broadly agree, but she is on slightly shaky ground with her last point. I suspect that the opposite is true. The loans would be a relatively secure product to buy. The risk is spread widely and the record of defaulting is small. I would think that they would be an attractive proposition. However, the hon. Lady made a good point about when they will be sold, to whom, on what time scale and in what chunks.

Sarah Teather: Let me develop the point. What about those students from the European Union whom we have discussed? That is especially relevant as more students move around. What happens if students move abroad? Are they more or less likely to default? With a free market in higher education across Europe, are we sure that such loans will always be a secure investment? I am not quite so sure. Those points need to be explored.
	What requirement is there for HMRC to pursue those students who fail to pay back their loans? If the buyers of the student loan book are to rely on HMRC's competence to realise the value of their purchase, this week will have fatally undermined the price of the assets on offer.
	The hon. Member for Great Grimsby referred to debt bundles, and he made a good point. With the lack of liquidity in the financial market today, there is a serious question about whether any bank would want to take on the risk of buying the student loan book. If banks are loth to invest at the moment, there is a risk that the Government will have to sweeten the deal heavily to interest buyers.
	A number of hon. Members have asked how large a discount the Government will need to give to investors and what proportion of the book they will sell to raise the 6 billion. The Minister has consistently said that he cannot answer because that would reveal all the Government's cards to investors, but the cat is out of the bag. We know that the Government's finances are tighter this year and that there is a greater squeeze on spending. Selling the student loan book under those circumstances is rather like advertising on lastminute.com: The plane leaves in 24 hours, all tickets must go. Any price accepted. We should perhaps be a little concerned that there is a risk that the Government will put in far too great a sweetener, which would lower what is good value for money.
	How will the Government decide what is good value for money? How will we know what they have done to establish that? If the Government do not reach a deal that is good value for money, will they postpone the sale, or proceed anyway? They will need to receive a capital amount to balance the books this year. The Tories did at least postpone the sale in 1996 when they failed to obtain a good price for the taxpayer.
	The problem is that the Government's record is not good. The forthcoming National Audit Office report on QinetiQ, which we expect to be published tomorrow, is a prime example. A large stake in the defence firm was sold at rock-bottom prices to the Carlyle group and then floated on the stock market, which made the group a hefty 300 million profit. That is a prime example of what happens if we do not ensure that we get value for money at the time.
	If the Government succeed in selling the student loan book at a level they believe to be fair, will they undertake to report to the house on the details of the sale before proceeding with further sales? That is the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) made when he asked the Minister to put on the record the discounted rate for the previous sales. I accept that we will not know all the details before the sale, but if the House is to have confidence in what the Government are doing we need to know the success rate that they have achieved so far.
	From the investors' point of view, it is not clear how they will know exactly what they are buying unless the Government intend to release much personal data about the loans. The Minister said that all the information for potential purchasers would be anonymised, but I cannot understand how investors could genuinely appreciate what they were buying without knowing far more about those who owe the debt. That raises concerns.
	What will happen if students default on their payments? The hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) and for Great Grimsby asked about that. Will HMRC pass on information about individuals to the new owners of the debt? What data will be passed to them? What safeguards will be in place? Will HMRC or the new loan owner be responsible for chasing up those who default? How will the relationship work? How will the data be transferred? I presume that the Minister does not want the Opposition to give him details of a reliable courier company, and that a better system will be used in future. There was some hubris in the Government's reference to their intentions on data protection in the Q and A that the Department released. I suspect that no hon. Member will be as ready to accept the Government's reassurances about the matter now.
	What will happen when the initial purchaser sells on the debt? The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) made that point in interventions. Are the Government genuinely saying, as the Minister told me in private, that they will undertake to draw up a new agreement and contract with any new purchaser, all the way down the line, regardless of the way in which the debt is broken up, the number of people to whom it is sold on and whether it is sold here or abroad? What data protection will be in place as the debt is passed along the chain?
	The Government trespassed on principle long before we reached this point, when they decided to impose large debts for higher education on students just as they start out in life. There are few points of principle in the Bill, but it contains several holes that leave graduates in uncertainty. I hope that the Minister will turn his mind to them in Committee. However, for now, we are content to let the measure through.

Tim Boswell: We are nearing the end of a bad week in Parliament for the Government. However, at last a Bill has come along that we can describe as reasonably sensible. It will have my support today.
	I have a circumscribed role in higher education as, first, a member and officer of the all-party university group and, secondlythe Minister and certainly the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) will be interested in thisa relatively newly appointed governor of a Welsh higher education institution. We shall watch that interface with interest.
	However, given that it is more than a decade since my service as a Minister with responsibility for higher education, it is not appropriate for me to debate contentiously or dilate on details of the past. I can say fairly that I floated the idea of doing something along the lines that the Bill suggests and that I have supported the principle of doing so ever since. I welcome the widespread consensus that has been achieved on that. If we consider the reasons for not doing that at the time, it is fair to say that, in the early days of student loans, there was less experience of the repayment compliance. Since then, there has been greater refinement of financial instruments and, perhaps most importantly, the underlying asset has escalated in value. The asset, allowing for another year's issue of loans, would now approach roughly 20 billion. That is four or five times the value of a decade ago.
	However, the Bill is essentially a Treasury measure. It is not about the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills or about education. It needs assessing for its economic impact and, as several hon. Members who contributed interestingly said, the critical issues are the conditions and timing of any sale that the Treasury makes or drives. There is no more explicit disclaimer of the Department's involvement than that in paragraph 42 of the explanatory notes, which states:
	No aspect of this Bill will create a material impact on borrowers, higher education institutions or employers.
	If that is the case, one is driven to wonder what on earth the Minister, much as I like and respect him, is doing discussing the Bill. Where is the Treasury, which is in effect controlling the legislation? However, we are pleased to see the Minister here and he explained the Bill very well.
	The Bill's primary importance is economic, although there may be secondary implications for students and the sector. It is clear from this week's events that even ifthis would be an impossible task and I do not anticipate that it will take place even in the near futurethe Government could sell off, at one gulp and at an early date, all the student loans, the total proceeds would fall below the total amount of current Government lending to Northern Rock. In a sense, things have not gone down the pan, but that is at least the scale of the commitment.
	It is perfectly proper for Ministers, whether Treasury Ministers or Education Ministers, to say that the sale of a loan as a Government asseta loan is of course an assetis an alternative to further Government borrowing. Indeed, doing so may introduce some welcome flexibility in the Government's financial affairs. I have no difficulty with that. However, my hon. Friends and others are right to say that we are entitled to ask the Minister to give some indication of the deal that his Department has done to recover the proceeds from the Treasury. For example, are we talking about an enhanced capital programme for higher education institutions? If we are, will it be a genuine enhancement of the resources available to higher education or will it merely be a substitute for others that would have been available?
	Those are general questions about the Bill. There are also some interesting technical questions that are worth probing more in Committee and to which a number of hon. Members have already referred in interventions or speeches. There is an interesting and essential tension between the number and nature of the safeguards available as far as student confidentiality is concerned and the number of players involved. Ministers have rightly fallen back on the overriding guardianship role of the Secretary of State. It is worth noting that the Secretary of State's obligations are set out clearly in paragraph 15 of the explanatory notes. I should make it clear that those obligations fall on him, and are not demitted to individual civil servants, whether senior or junior.
	One of those obligations is to ensure that correct repayments are taken. A second one is to protect borrowers' personal data and to make arrangements to allow borrowers to discuss issues that have arisen in the course of their borrowing. Those are entirely proper public functions that sit with the Secretary of State. We cannot have arrangements that are seen to muddy those responsibilities, either within the Department or with regard to the subsequent control of the loans.
	I mentioned this in an intervention, so I will not speak about it at length, but we know from the history of collateralised debt obligations that loans can easily be, and in fact are likely to be, chopped up and repackaged, and can involve a large number of players, some of whom, even if we know who they are, are likely to be outside the jurisdiction of this country and the Secretary of State. At best, when all those people are involved, sensitive data can leak. Indeed, there will be people looking for that to happen, perhaps in order to relate the names to other credit references that they may have. At worst, the data could be actively abused. At any rate, it is clear that the audit trail is bound to lengthen unless it is controlled.
	The next issue is the nature of the risk being transferred. In a sense, that is as long as a piece of string, and whatever risk is being transferred will have to be made explicit to potential purchasers, who will make their own judgment on it. If we consider the old mortgage-style loans, we will remember that there has always been provision for mortalitywhich, sadly, occursand for other non-repayment because the conditions had been fulfilled for writing off the loan after a finite period of years.
	I have some sympathy with the comments of the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) about this matter. There are now issues about the susceptibility to changes in economic conditions and the potential for default. I hope that the Minister will say something about the experience of active default as opposed to the writing off of a loan under permitted conditions in the existing arrangements.
	The Minister and I have previously debated the merits or otherwise of the old mortgage-style loans that I used to operate, and I do not want to reopen that debate. I am certainly not saying that we should bring them back now; we move on. However, for borrowers, the terms and obligations attached to those loans were fairly clear. That might not be the case with income-contingent loans, not least because the level of income might not be clear.
	I say to the Ministeras I would say to his Treasury colleagues if they were supporting him on the Front Bench todaythat if one is prepared to take a big enough discount, anything, even a sub-prime mortgage, can be got away at a price, but it will only be a severely discounted one. I believe that the Minister is right to keep his powder dry, despite the blandishments of the Liberal Democrats, about the precise conditions under which he is going to sell. I would be the first to complain if he engaged in a fire sale of this very valuable asset. However, he needs to know what he wants to sell, and purchasers will need to know what they want to buy.
	This brings me to a further issue. I am sorry if this point is something of a King Charles's head for me, but I make no apology for repeating it, because I believe that it is important. There is the potentialnot the actualityof a scandal in the making over the question of outstanding student loans that are outside the Secretary of State's jurisdiction. The Minister has been perfectly reasonable and reassuring in relation to loans within the British envelope. Most people pay PAYE, and most student loans are recovered through Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. We understand from what the Minister has said today that, thank goodness, there has been no breach of security in that regard. We accept his assurance and we are pleased about it. However, a significant minority of loans are given to qualifying persons who are not British nationals, including European Union students and those from within the European economic area, and to British nationals who subsequently become resident abroad and do not pay UK income tax.
	The convenient arrangements involving recovery through the Revenue do not apply in those cases. As I understand it, the Student Loans Company is responsible for the collection of those debts, in accordance with the rules. Incidentally, it is also responsible for any voluntary payments that people might make to wipe off their debts, which is welcome. The Minister should tell the House whether there is a material sign of any differential impact between home graduates, if I may call them that, and those resident overseas. I would not be surprised if there were growing evidence of default by those who have passed outside the range of the Revenue and are now difficult to pursue. Without wishing to make a derogatory remark, I must point out that this is similar to the problems of enforcing judgments against foreign drivers, for example.
	The Minister needs to take this issue seriously. If word gets out on the street that someone can take out a student loan in the United Kingdomwe are obliged to offer itbut that they do not need to pay it back because they have moved out of the system or because they are a Brit who has moved abroad, in effect to escape from the loan, that would be very bad news. It is disadvantageous to our own resident students, and it makes less money available for other public purposes in the long term. I hope that the Minister will say something about compliance in the context of foreign-resident, as opposed to home-resident, graduates.
	This will obviously be a Committee point, but I think we should consider whether purchasers will be obliged to take a proportion of accounts of persons who are resident abroad as part of the package, or whether it is conceivable that a separate package might be offered consisting of persons who are exclusively resident abroadStudent Loans Company cases, rather than Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs cases.
	Perhaps the Minister will allow me a hypothetical example which I think is at least worth considering. If a Lithuanian bank felt able to secure a package of loans extended only to Lithuanian nationals who had come to the United Kingdom to study, and then to attack them under Lithuanian debt laws and get a faster rate of return than it would by going through the front doorin other words, the Student Loans Companythat would be a differential and might even attract some concern in Europe. If nothing else, it should be considered whether there is any distinction in practice that makes the position of students either easier or more onerous depending on whether they are resident in the United Kingdom or abroadwhether as an English, or British, national or as a foreign nationalthat would amount to a loss of that famous and desirable concept, the level playing field. To put it simply, it would not be fair.
	Although the Bill is narrow, a number of Members have referred to some of the wider policy contexts. As we are lucky enough to have an Education Minister present, I think it reasonable to make a few brief comments of that kind.
	There are major long-term issues in the Bill, for all that it is Treasury-driven and will be Treasury-directed, which relate to the real world of students and, indirectly, to the health of higher education institutions and the overall health of the sector. As my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) has said in the past, once the Department has settled down after its initial separation from the other education Department, it needs to make an early start on appraising the impacts of the present fee regime ahead of the 2009 review. In fairness, the Minister has quoted figures for recruitment which will be relevant to that, and which I welcome.
	As a whole, the present position is encouraging. The Conservatives, too, are interestedcertainly I am interestedin access for people who, although they are from disadvantaged backgrounds, have the same potential as, or even greater potential than, some of their counterparts. We need to discover whether there are differential impacts, not just according to social class or income but relating to the pattern of offers among part-timers and mature students.
	The other day I went to talk to a group of sixth-formers. I was a little disappointed when someone who seemed bright enough to qualify for university said very definitely, I am not going. When I asked,, Would you mind telling me why?, the reply was, I am worried about debt. That was a one-offit may have been the word on the street, and it may not be typical of students collectivelybut it is depressing nevertheless.
	The Minister may be awareit has featured in earlier debatesof my concern about the cumulative effect on marginal tax rates of income taxperhaps even paid by quite junior people at higher ratesnational insurance contributions and student loan repayments. I can never remember what the acronym is supposed to stand for, but some social scientists have referred to members of the so-called iPod generation, who incur, in effect, a marginal tax rate of over 50 per cent. at a very young age, which I think is worrying.
	That also plays into wider issues to do with life profile and life chances. People who are repaying onerous student loans might at the same time be founding households or thinking for the first time about taking out a mortgageand, as we all know, they ought to be thinking about their pension, too, when there is a chance that compound interest will give them a worthwhile pension.
	In saying that, I do not seek to subvert anything the Minister has done. A good job was done collectively in Committee on proposed higher education legislation in getting a better student package. I am happy in some respects about that. We cannot anticipate the review, but we should emphasise that it is important and that it is about sustaining access and at least controlling the burdens on graduates even if they have a better future income stream.
	There are questions to do not only with the conventional model of higher education students, but also with part-time and mature students. I will not today open up the issue of payments through higher education institutions for qualifications of equivalent or lower quality, although that is a concern of mineabout which I have written to the Secretary of Statebecause of some of the impacts on some institutions and types of study.
	There is also the whole area of comparison with further education. The Minister was not quite right when he said that nobody has ever helped in that area before, because career development loans have been available for many years. In a sense, they are a private sector riska managed and reduced risk. However, the scale of the commitment to CDLs pales in comparison with the size of the student loan book.
	Part-timers at higher education institutions have, at last, been able to avail themselves of loans in certain circumstances, which is welcome, but some recent work has come to my attention through City and Guildsthe Minister might have seen it, tooconfirming my long-standing belief that FE is left standing in terms of student support, however great its economic contribution might be. I hope that that will be addressed, and that the Minister will take those disparities seriously.
	As I move on in my parliamentary career, I can reflect as well asI hopelook forward. It is a strange fact that the Education Act 1962 marks the beginning of the concept of the student support package and the mandatory award. I was an undergraduate at that time. Since then, the whole body of measures has gathered barnacles, accretions, qualifications, embellishments, derogations and further advantages. Let me give a simple example: it was not until approximately 1990 that the first student loans were added to supplement the grants package, and Ministers have now brought back the grants package to supplement the loans. The concept of an entitlement, or mandatory award, attached to a first course of undergraduate study at a higher education institution has, however, persisted; but the time is fast approaching for us to take a fresh look not only at student finances, although that is important, but at the whole of the financing of post-compulsory education at higher and further education level and also embracing training and the important and growing area of continuing professional development. None of that is included in the Bill, as it is a technical, enabling Bill, which is all right as far as it goesat least we hope that there is none of that, and that such changes to the system might only have crept in inadvertently. The issues we are discussing are serious and deep, however, and we will have to address and tackle them before too long.

Roger Williams: I apologise to you and to the House for not being here at the beginning of the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	The Bill had an inauspicious start as far as Wales was concerned when it was trailed in the draft legislative programme and described as England only. It has now been properly described as extending to England and Wales. Indeed, we have received more support and information from the Wales Office than we have had previously when dealing with similar Bills. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) mentioned the Further Education and Training Act 2007, which led to confusion when the intention was not to give Welsh further education colleges the power to award foundation degrees. We are all gaining experience in this type of legislation.

Bill Rammell: For the record, there was no confusion on that issue, either when the Bill was going through the House or in respect of this Government.

Roger Williams: I accept the Minister's point. I merely say to him that Labour Members felt that there was some confusion, and they made contributions along those lines.

Bill Rammell: For the record, I remember distinctly that what my hon. Friends were concerned about was proper and effective scrutiny of the transfer of powers to the Welsh Assembly Government. The concern was not about whether that Government chose to take up foundation degree awarding powers.

Roger Williams: I accept what the Minister says. I am looking to the future rather than to the past, and we want to learn lessons from the legislative processes that we have been through.
	The explanatory notes give the student loan book a value of 18.1 billion. Lord Triesman's office has informed my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mark Williams) that that is an England-only figure and that the Wales figure is 1.1 billion. It would be helpful if the Minister confirmed those figures in Committee or at some other stage.
	I would be interested to learn what representations the Minister and his Department have received from the Welsh Assembly. I understand that there is little appetite in Wales for using these powers. I might be wrong about that, but it would be interesting to hear about any representations that have been made to the Minister along those lines.
	The powers are mirror powerswe are learning to use that technical term. They give Ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government the same powers, and no more, as the powers that could be exercised by Ministers here. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) asked where the money raised by the sale of the student loans book would go. When he was making that point, I wondered where any sum raised by the sale of the Wales student loan book would go if Ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government used the powers that are intended for them. Would the money stay with the Assembly or be taken back to Westminster? If the money stayed with the Assembly, what could the Assembly use it for? Ministers in the Welsh Assembly Government might be encouraged to use powers given to them if they felt that they could use the money in a constructive and positive manner.
	In general, Liberal Democrats would prefer to have framework powers in this type of legislation rather than mirror powers. We shall be interested to see in Committee how the Minister will respond under scrutiny to such sentiments.

Robert Wilson: This is my first contribution from the Front Bench, and it is a great privilege to follow the many thoughtful speeches and interventions in the debate today. We have had a short but interesting debate, which has at times made me think that the major parties are conducting a love-in rather than a debate. It certainly lacked some of the usual rough and tumble of exchanges in this House, but why should the Opposition oppose the Government when they implement ideas that we originally proposed?
	Much has been made recently of the Xerox Chancellor and the magpie Budget, but the sale of student loans goes back much further and could be described as Labour's original sin. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) said, my party first proposed the sale of student loans back in 1996, and it was implemented in 1998 and 1999 by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) in an attempt to stay within Government spending limits.
	If those on both sides of the House could continue to work effectively in pursuit of sensible policies, especially Conservative ones, it would be good for the image of Parliament and for the country. I therefore applaud the Government for once again recognising a bright idea that has emanated from the Conservatives. I hope that that sets a precedent for a future in which our policies regularly slip unchallenged past the House. Even the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), in a thoughtful contribution, made it clear that her party would not oppose the Bill.
	The Bill is a sensible and rational piece of legislation, although I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), who pointed out that this is a Treasury Bill, not a higher education Bill. The sale of the student loan book is consistent with our belief in further public-private collaboration, and it will enable the Government to capitalise on a growing public asset without affecting borrowers or taxpayers. It could even have the added and totally irrelevant but enjoyable side benefit of irritating the left wing of the Labour party.
	Speaking of the Labour left, I notice that an early-day motion from the usual suspects has already called for the uncosted abolition of interest on student loan repayments. It would be useful if the Minister could let us have an estimate of the cost of that policy. Perhaps he could tell us how many nurses or teachers would have to be sacked if the Government implemented the policies of their Back Benchers.

Bill Rammell: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Front Bench. To enable me to respond properly to the point that he has just made, I would be grateful if he repeated it, as I was inadvertently detained elsewhere for a moment.

Robert Wilson: The Minister may be aware of the early-day motion tabled by some Labour Back BenchersI described them as the usual suspectsthat calls for the abolition of interest on student loan repayments, which would raise costs for the Treasury significantly. I wondered whether he could advise us how much that would cost, perhaps in terms of how many nurses and teachers would need to be sacked. In any case, I advise him to keep an eye on the left wing of his party, so that it does not lurch too far to the left.
	We are satisfied in general terms that the Bill includes sufficient safeguards for buyers and borrowers. The proposals will transfer a growing debt portfolio, and all the risks that go with it, out of public hands and into those of private institutions, which are vastly more experienced than Government in debt management. Those private institutions are also probably more experienced in data protection, given this week's calamitya point made powerfully by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell).
	The National Union of Students has already stated its concern that the Bill may be a step towards students paying commercial rates of interest. I do not believe that it is, and it should be noted that students still enjoy a favourable interest rate that is pegged to inflation. There is little for students to worry about in the Bill, which probably explains why they have not been more vociferous in their representations to hon. Members. Students may be more concerned, however, that the average graduate debt is 15,000 and takes some 13 years to pay off, as the Minister recently informed me in a written answer.
	Like the hon. Member for Brent, East, we recognise that financing a university education can be a challenge for many students and their families. We welcome the fact that the Bill enables the Government to preserve the low interest rate that students currently enjoy. In that context the point made by the hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) is relevant in making sure that we are communicating directly with students on this matter.
	The Minister, in his opening remarks, was right to say that it is prudent to consider the timing of any sale of the loan book. I understand that passing the legislation does not necessarily mean an immediate sale. As many hon. Members have said, in the light of the Northern Rock fiasco and the dark economic clouds over the banking sector and the economy, that is a particularly relevant and important concern.
	There are questions on which I hope the Minister can shed some light. I understand that the proceeds from the sale are already accounted for in the comprehensive spending review. Perhaps he can tell the House whether there is a time limit on when the sale must be undertaken. If putting the revenue into the comprehensive spending review means that the money must be raised within three years, does that weaken our negotiating position in getting the best deal? My hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings made a good point when he asked how much of the 6 billion is already accounted for in the comprehensive spending review and where it is allocated. If the Government do not raise the expected sum, what impact will that have on the Government's spending plans?
	I remind the Government that the student loan book is a public asset and taxpayers will expect a reasonable price from any sell-off. The Government must avoid the temptation to cash in too quickly for the sake of the public sector borrowing requirement and pressure to raise funds. It was absolutely right for my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) to remind the Minister that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer sold a large portion of the gold reserves for a quarter of the price that we could have got shortly afterwards, even if in doing so my hon. Friend slightly changed the flow of my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings. As the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) pointed out yesterday, the Government undervalued QinetiQ to the tune of 300 million.
	I will be helpful to the Government, because they have had such a stinker of a week, and demonstrate why there is no rush to sell. Despite the concern expressed by the hon. Members for Great Grimsby and for Brent, East, this sale is a good deal for whichever commercial entity wins it. The House should note that these loans are not sub-prime mortgages. Graduates are likely to move directly into employment and begin repayment quickly. These loans are an attractive asset for banks, providing a continuous income over a long period from a low-risk group, collected securely through the tax system. They will also diversify the banks' portfolios and give them direct contact with an important socio-economic group. The Government have a strong hand to play and we will watch to ensure that they play it well.
	It is worth remembering that the first two sales of student loans failed to reach the estimated value. Valuations of 1.6 billion and 1.5 billion raised a combined total of just under 2.1 billion when sold. Does the Minister expect to lose as much as a third of the face value with this sale, as the Government have on previous occasions? Is that what he suggested in his opening remarks was good value for money?
	According to the figure we have been given, the sale will involve 6 billion-worth of loans from the current 18 billion, but I am not clear whether that is the amount that the Government expect to receive into Treasury coffers or whether that figure is negotiable. I again remind the Government that these are public assets and Parliament expects full disclosure on how the sale will be handled and conducted. However, I am sure that we can deal with many of these questions in Committee rather than detain the House too long this afternoon.

Richard Spring: Keep going.

Mark Hoban: Keep going.

Robert Wilson: I thank my hon. Friends who from a sedentary position keep me going and refuel me in mid-air.
	We have also heard references to the expense of paying interest subsidies to the debt sale purchasers, particularly from the hon. Member for Great Grimsby. I accept that some form of subsidy will be inevitable to make the project commercially viable, but the expense of repayment should decline as the loans are repaid. Can the Minister inform the House what the impact of paying interest subsidies will be on the total revenue the Government will ultimately receive?
	In a written answer to the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) of 3 May, the Minister informed us that between financial years 1998-99 and 2005-06 the interest subsidy came to a total of 561 million.

Tim Boswell: My hon. Friend might like to reflect on the fact that the nature of the interest subsidy is contingent. It cannot necessarily be predicted in advance because the rate of inflation, which drives the student loan formula, and the commercial interest rates available may diverge over time and could have no direct relation to one another.

Robert Wilson: As always, my hon. Friend makes an interesting point based on his wealth of experience in these matters.
	Obviously, the Bill involves a much bigger transaction than the 561 million to which I was referring, and the amount of interest subsidy paid will increase at least proportionately, which involves some risk, as my hon. Friend suggests. Taking into account the face value of the sale and the subsequent interest subsidy payments, what proportion of the 6 billion will the Government ultimately keep? What proportion of it has been accounted for in the comprehensive spending review?
	Can the Minister tell the House which loans will be selected for sale? Will the selection be random or systematic, according to a formula such as whether the loans are high or low risk? What is the total number of loans to be included in the package to bring the value up to 6 billion?
	Many Members referred to trust in their contributions. Recent events have further undermined the Government's reputation for competencethroughout Government, not just in the education sector. Several Members asked about data protection, about which the public have some doubts, so what assurances can the Minister and the Government give graduates that their personal details, including bank account information, will not be lost, leaked or liquidated accidentally? The public will not have been completely reassured by the Minister's opening remarks. Can the House be assured that such information will always be encrypted and not moved around on CD-ROMs?
	Can the public trust the Government to spend the proceeds of the sale wisely? There have been countless examples across Government, including in education, of profligate and wasteful spending. Indeed, some people might even say that unnecessarily splitting a Department and renaming the remnants constitutes just such waste. If that were not enough, there are many other examples of waste, as recent reports have shown; Lancaster university has already warned us about the frivolous way in which the Government splash the cash. A commitment from the Government to reinvest the revenue raised from the sale would be extremely welcome. In a powerful intervention, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) said that he wanted some of the money spent on higher educationas did some other contributors.
	I, too, hope that at least some of the money can be spent on our higher education sector, which is, as the Minister knows, vital to the UK economy and should be given every reasonable support. However, the money resolution makes it clear that all the revenue will disappear into the Consolidated Fund. Can the Minister tell the House how much of it will go to higher education? A small part could be used to reinvest in institutions that will be devastated by the impact of recent cuts. Over the summer, the Government sneaked out a 100 million cut in funding to institutions dedicated to part-time and mature students. Help to institutions such as the Open university and Birkbeck college, both of which provide a valuable service to the UK economy, would be extremely welcome.
	I am sure that, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings suggested, the House would be interested to know whether the Minister has been in discussion with interested commercial bodies already. Will it be possible in due course for the Minister to name the interested parties? If he feels that doing so would undermine negotiations, could he perhaps disclose the number of interested parties with whom he has already had preliminary discussions? If he genuinely fears undermining the negotiations, I shall not push that matter, as it is vital that the Government are not hampered in their efforts to obtain maximum value for money when the assets are sold.
	It is important to respond to the powerful contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), who has enormous experience of these matters. In particular, he raised the issue of selling on loans, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie), and the Minister needs to offer considerable reassurance on that issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor is right: it is possible that the Government could end up guaranteeing the very loan that they have just sold off.
	Having sounded several notes of caution and having asked the Minister a number of specific questions, I shall close my speech by saying that the Opposition are, in general, satisfied that the Bill will provide the necessary safeguards to attract commercial buyers. The sale is evidence that closer co-operation between the public and private sectors provides the most effective way to manage the growing student debt portfolio. The revenue that the Bill will raise, and should continue to raise, is welcome. Despite reservations about selling on loans, information security and how the Government will spend the money, we believe that the proposals in the Bill are sensible, and we will therefore not hinder its progress on Second Reading.

Bill Rammell: We have had a good, constructive

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister needs the leave of the House.

Bill Rammell: I apologise. With the leave of the House, I seek permission to respond to the debate. Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	We have had a good, constructive and, in many ways, consensual debate. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) set out his dedication, which I accept, and that of the Conservative party, to widening access to education, particularly higher education. Genuine commitment to widening participation requires consistency in decision making. I charitably remind him of the Conservative party's flip-flopping on student fees. When tuition fees were first introduced in 1998, the Conservatives advocated full top-up fees, with no protection. By the time we took the legislation through the House before the last general election, the Conservatives were opposed to variable fees. Now, they are in favour of the Government's position. Indeed, they now tell us that they want the review on the cap to be brought forward, which would be irresponsible. Some Conservative Members, such as the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), advocate the lifting of the cap before we have the evidence. The Conservative party is somewhat lacking in credibility on this issue.

Tim Boswell: I do not intend to challenge everything that the Minister is perhaps about to say, but it is important that Ministers start to collate the evidence on the review of the cap and to take a preliminary viewthey should not leave that until the last moment, when they might take a snapshot, which would not be wholly representative of the profile of the situation. FurtherI end on this pointthey should also have regard to the long-term, whole-of-life implications for students whose other commitments grow as their careers mature.

Bill Rammell: I accept that last point, and given that the hon. Gentleman previously did my current ministerial job, I know that he is very knowledgeable on such matters. I certainly agree that it is critical that we have as much information as possible about how the new system is working before the independent commission in 2009. That is why the shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills is neither right nor justified in calling for that commission to be introduced before we have the full, substantive body of evidence before us.
	The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings chided me, saying that we were picking up Tory policies. We legislated on the sale of mortgage-style student loans in 1998well before the commitment that the Opposition gave in their last general election manifesto. We believe that this is the right thing to do. It sensibly transfers risk from the public sector to the private sector and ensures that students and graduates are not affected in any way, shape or form.
	The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who chairs the Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee, made an interesting contribution. He argued that the proceeds from the sale of student debt should be hypothecated to my Department. I will come back to that point later, but I have to say that the money will be paid into the Consolidated Fund and will support all Government expenditure. That is in line with the principle by which loans are repaid at the moment, and it would not be in anyone's interest to breach the principle.

John Hayes: The hon. Gentleman speaks with integrity on these matters and I hear what he says about the money being paid into the Consolidated Fund. Members on both sides of the Chamber have expressed doubt about the timing of the sale. This would not be a great time to sell, as I am sure he realises. Given the Government's financial problems, I suspect that the matter may be decided well above his pay grade. We do not want a sale to go ahead that is not in the interests of the public, universities or students.

Bill Rammell: The hon. Gentleman referred to the extra-sensory powers of the hon. Member for Daventry, who anticipated the next point that he was going to make. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings is similarly endowed with those powers, because he has just made the very point that I was coming to.
	We will not rush the sales imprudently. Clearly, it is not possible accurately to predict market conditions at a given point in the future because they will, naturally, vary for different sales. The powers in the Bill are intended to establish a long-term ongoing programme of sales. We will monitor the market with a view to launching sales at times when market conditions are more stable and less volatile, to help ensure the best possible value for money for the taxpayer. The Bill gives us the ability to sell. All that we have set out so far in the comprehensive spending review is our intention, over the coming three years, to sell 6 billion of student loans. If market conditions are not adequate or appropriate, and do not ensure value for money, sales will not go ahead. I can give that categorical commitment.
	We heard welcome comments about establishing a cross-party consensus, if we can, so that everything possible is done to ensure confidence in the safety of personal data. I refer back to what I said in my opening contribution. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor made his statement this week. Lord Triesman, the Minister with responsibility for intellectual property and quality, has asked the Student Loans Company to review its operations and data management processes. No breaches of data protection protocols have occurred in respect of student loan administration and we are certain that no data have gone missing in respect of student loan administration. However, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has initiated a wide-ranging review of its security processes and procedures, and we are undertaking a review of student loans and all Departments are reviewing their data management processes. If the hon. Gentleman wants to make further suggestions in Committee, I will be happy to consider them.

John Hayes: I am grateful for the tone of the Minister's remarks. It seems that this is a dynamic situation. Fraudsters are becoming ever more sophisticated and it might be necessary to look at the matter more closely in Committee, given the events of the last few days. I am happy to accept his suggestion that we could do that on a bipartisan basis, but it might involve taking further advice and making amendments to the Bill to build in extra securitypurely because it is important that we reassure the public, students and potential students.

Bill Rammell: It is important that I again make it clear that we have not identified a problem. No breaches of protocol have taken place and no student loans administration data have gone missing. Nevertheless, if the hon. Gentleman has proposals, I am happy to consider them.
	The hon. Gentleman made a point about ensuring that a fair allocation of the Bill's proceeds goes to my Department. That is a decision for the Treasury, and I will not reveal discussions that take place between my Secretary of State, colleagues in the Treasury, the Chancellor and me. I ask the hon. Gentleman to judge us by what we have done in the past. During the Conservatives' last eight years in power, there was a 36 per cent. real-terms cut in per-student funding rate for higher education. Under this Government, there has been a 23 per cent. real-terms increase in the higher education budget. Across the country, virtually every vice-chancellor I speak to acknowledges that universities are undergoing a big expansion in their finances; that is in stark contrast to what they experienced before 1 May 1997.
	The hon. Gentleman also asked me about growth projections for the student loan book. We expect that the income-contingent loan book will grow to about 21 billion by April 2008, and about 25 billion by April 2009. Clearly, the sales anticipated over the comprehensive spending review period are not for the whole loan book; we are talking about a long-term programme. I reiterate that if market conditions are not appropriate and we cannot guarantee value for money, sales will not go ahead.

Tim Boswell: Is it not also self-evident that the value obtained for a particular tranche of loans is a function of the size of that tranche? It may be quite easyand sensibleto get small amounts away, and to leave some of the bigger bulk for later. In other words, it is not just a matter of initiating the programme. The Minister and the Government should not be in too much of a hurry to try to sell the bulk.

Bill Rammell: Let me again make it clear that we will act prudently and responsibly in undertaking the sales. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings asked who was likely to purchase the loans. We believe, based on the advice that we have received, that a wide range of investors will be interested in buying bonds based on the loans, because they are a new asset class that will diversify investors' portfolios and meet specific investor needs, for which there is a market. Those investors are likely to include pension funds, banks, insurance companies and fund managers; they will buy different loans according to their risk appetite.
	The hon. Members for South Holland and The Deepings, and for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), asked about the implications for Wales and the Welsh Assembly. As the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire knows, student support policy and ownership of the Welsh student loan book was devolved in 2006. As responsibility for student loans in Wales has been devolved to Welsh Ministers, it is important that the provision applies equally to Wales. Any decision on the future sales of the Welsh loan book must be made in Wales by Welsh Ministers. Clause 8 gives Welsh Ministers the power to make those decisions. Welsh Ministers are keen to ensure that the powers are in place, so that they can ensure that maximum value for money is achieved for Welsh student loans. The Bill will enable Welsh Ministers to decide when it is appropriate to use the powers, bearing in mind the relevant economic and value-for-money considerations.
	The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings also asked whether I could give an indication of protected proceedsthat is, of the price that we will achieve. It would not be right to talk about the level of proceeds ahead of a rate. There will be a competitive process to maximise value for money for the taxpayer.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), who is no longer in the Chamber, made a number of points. He talked about 18 billion-worth of sales; our only commitment at this stage is to seek 6.3 billion over the coming three-year period.
	The hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), who leads for the Liberal Democrats, asked me to write into the Bill our future intentions with respect to fees and student finance. That would not be the right thing to do. We should stick to our policy of having an independent commission in 2009 and not prejudging it. That is the position of the Government, not of the Opposition. The right hon. Member for Wokingham has said that we should lift the cap now, and a Liberal Democrat think-tank says the same. We need to be responsible and stick to our policy.
	The hon. Lady asked about the implications for the Student Loans Company. Let me be clear. Following a sale, the Government plan to include provision within the contract that the SLC will continue to carry out the administration and enforcement of the loans that have been sold, and will continue to have all direct day-to-day contact with borrowers. That should give significant reassurance.
	The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) made an important contribution, based on his previous experience. We will not sell at any price. He made some important comments about students who travel overseas or students from elsewhere in the European Union. We need to be clear that loans to EU citizens for tuition fees started only in 2006-07. The first graduates will begin repayment from 2010. For that reason, those loans will not be part of the early sales of the loan portfolio.
	We are putting in place with the Student Loan Company a comprehensive system for collecting loans. The principle of income-contingent loans means that we will collect repayments according to purchasing power in the country where the borrower is resident. That is important. No one will be able to avoid repaying because a good local salary does not meet our 15,000 threshold simply as a result of the currency rates. We will ensure that enforcement across the EU will be possible under EU law by taking action in the UK courtsfrom memory, I think EC directive 1441 deals with that.
	The hon. Member for Reading, East (Mr. Wilson) wound up for the Opposition. I welcome him formally on his first appearance at the Dispatch Box. He asked me about paying interest subsidies to the purchaser. That is not how we expect the sale to work. There will not be an ongoing subsidy to purchasers; all that will be taken into account in the sale price.
	The hon. Gentleman commented on second degrees. Let me state for the record that we are not cutting funding to universities. We are sayingrightly, in my view that 100 million over three years ought to be transferred from institutions spending that money on people who already have an undergraduate qualification to those, especially in the workplace, who do not have a first degree. There will be protection and transition. No university will lose out in cash terms at the end of that period. That is the right priority. Some 70 per cent. of the adult work force do not have a first degree qualification. That is a higher priority than people who already have their first degree.
	In conclusion, the Bill is important. We have had a sensible and measured debate and I commend the Bill to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Bill accordingly read a Second time.

SALE OF STUDENT LOANS BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 83A(7) (Programme motions),
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Sale of Student Loans Bill:
	 Committal
	1. The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.
	 Proceedings in Public Bill Committee
	2. Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on 11th December 2007.
	3. The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
	 Consideration and Third Reading
	4. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
	5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
	6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.
	 Other proceedings
	7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed. [Mr. David.]
	 Question agreed to.

SALE OF STUDENT LOANS BILL  [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation having been signified
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52(1)(a) (Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Sale of Student Loans Bill, it is expedient to authorise
	(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenditure of a Minister of the Crown in consequence of the Act, and
	(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund. [Mr. David.]
	 Question agreed to.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Madam Deputy Speaker: With the leave of the House, I shall put together the remaining two motions.
	 Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Delegated Legislation Committees),

Constitutional Law

That the draft Criminal Proceedings etc. (Reform) (Scotland) Act 2007 (Powers of District and JP Courts) Order 2007, which was laid before this House on 8th October, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.

Companies

That the Company and Business Names (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2007 (S.I., 2007, No. 3152) dated 5th November 2007, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th November, be approved. [Mr. David.]
	 Question agreed to.

PETITIONS

Front-line Health Services (Haverhill)

Richard Spring: Haverhill is the most rapidly expanding town in Suffolk and is served admirably by the three general practice surgeries located there. The GPs are valued and cherished as well as being highly productive, and they are held in great professional esteem by the local community. The proposal to cut funding to Haverhill GP practices will inevitably lead to job losses and have a devastating effect on front-line patient care, and it is wholly unacceptable. Ten thousand people have signed the petition acknowledging the injustice of the proposal and the lack of fairness to the people of Haverhill and their health needs.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of residents of Haverhill,
	Declares that Haverhill doctors are united against plans to cut funding for the towns frontline health services by over 300,000.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department of Health to instruct Suffolk Primary Care Trust to reconsider the reduction in funding to Haverhill GP practices.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000057]

Post Office Closures (Nottingham)

John Heppell: I beg leave to deliver a petition in the names of the users of Woodland Grove post office, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) and borders my constituency.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of the users of Woodland Grove Post Office,
	Declares that the closure of Woodland Grove Post Office would be detrimental to the local community and the viability of other shops in the vicinity.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government as the major shareholder in Post Office Ltd., to review the programme of planned Post Office closures with a view to keeping the Woodland Grove Post Office open.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000064]

Post Office Closures (Fareham)

Mark Hoban: I present this petition on behalf of more than 1,000 people who use the post office at Arundel drive in Fareham. They are concerned at the threat posed to its continuing existence, as it is one of the post offices scheduled for closure.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of those affected by the closure of Arundel Drive Post Office,
	Declares that the closure of Arundel Drive Post Office will cause considerable difficulty and hardship.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to make representations to Post Office Ltd. so that the Arundel Drive Post Office remains open.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000066]

SEA BASS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Mr. David.]

Martin Salter: With no sense of irony at all, I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box today, especially as it was touch and go as to whether either of us would make it to the Chamber, given the curtailment of Government business. The issue of the future of Britain's most popular recreational fish does not appear to have found any favour on the Opposition Benches. That will come as some surprise to the 1 million sea anglers in England, Scotland and Wales, although perhaps we should leave that matter for another day.
	It is ironic that, if the Minister had not been able to make it here on timeI am delighted that he hasthe Whips Office had chosen my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster) to take his place. He is an angler, and I am sure that he would have agreed with every word that I have to say. To have done so, of course, might have contravened the words that he might have been required to read out.
	This is an Adjournment debate; we are not limited by time, and I know that that will please everybody here. I am genuine in my congratulations to the Minister, who is a friend of mine. In his other role as Minister for the South East, he has impressed many people with how he has worked in the region with local communities struggling to deal with the aftermath of the July floods. I thank him for his two visits to my constituency; he will be aware that it is impossible to visit Reading without being harangued by fisherman, although in the case that I am thinking about they were freshwater fishermen.
	I look forward, particularly in my capacity as Labour's angling spokesman, to the day when I can offer similar praise for the decision that my hon. Friend has made as Minister with responsibility for fisheries. Sadly, as a result of his decision to go back on the commitment made by his predecessor to increase, in the interests of conservation, the minimum landing size of bass, I am not here to praise the Minister but to challenge himwhich is, after all, the purpose of this House. His announcement of 25 October on retaining the minimum landing size for bass at 36 cm rather than increasing it to 40 cm and then to 45 cm by 2010, as recommended by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science just two years ago, flies in the face of scientific evidence and has been greeted with understandable anger and dismay by hundreds of thousands of sea anglers, as well as by conservationists. He himself admitted that his decision was based on looking after the short-term interests of the inshore fleet rather than the long-term interests of the species and the environment. I want to tease out those points.
	It is worth reminding the House that the recreational sea angling sector in England and Wales is worth more than 1.3 billion a year to the economy and provides 19,000 non-subsidised jobs. The entire commercial fleet employs only 12,000 people, with considerably fewer in the under-10 m inshore fleet. We should be concerned about the impact of any decision on jobs, but let us not forget the devastating impact that unsustainable fishing has had on all sectors, both commercial and recreational. The livelihoods of charter skippers, who take anglers to sea and depend on healthy fish stocks to maintain a viable business, are every bit as important as those of the commercial fleet. Everybody suffers when a fishery collapses, as we saw in the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and in the American striped bass fishery, or as was nearly the case in respect of North sea cod stocks. Future generations will not remember kindly those politicians who duck the challenge of creating the sustainable harvesting of the resources of our planet.
	The nub of the argument is that we were promised that Britain's most popular fish in terms of its sporting and eating potential would be managed sustainably, and primarily as a recreational species. That was a promise made in Downing street, and it should be kept. In 2002, the Prime Minister's strategy unit commissioned a report on the benefits of recreational sea angling. That report, Net Benefits, was eventually published in 2004, to wide acclaim. It said:
	Fisheries management should recognise that sea angling may, in some circumstances, provide a better return on the use of some resources than commercial exploitation.
	Among its recommendations were:
	Fisheries departments should review the evidence supporting arguments for re-designating commercially caught species for wholly recreational sea angling, beginning with bass by the end of 2004.
	That was followed by the findings of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which looked at Net Benefits and, in a consensual report on an all-party basis, said:
	We strongly support the Strategy Unit recommendations to develop the recreational sea angling sector. We believe that the sector, which has considerable economic value, has been overlooked and under-represented for too long.
	In its conclusions, at paragraph 141, it added:
	We support the re-designation of certain species for recreational use and recognise the benefits that this can bring from both a conservation and economic point of view.
	It is easy to see the direction of travel in terms of public policy in respect of bass and its value to the commercial and recreational sectors. By 2004, we had No. 10, the Government and an all-party Commons Committee moving in the same direction, and it is fair to say that there were reasons to be cheerful. Rarely for a policy, the process survived the 2005 general election; in fact, it was enhanced by it. In Labour's Charter for Angling, the Minister's predecessor wrote:
	It was anglers' concerns for the conservation status of sea bass that has persuaded me to implement much of the excellent bass management plan put forward by the Bass Anglers Sport Fishing Society.
	That was before the 2005 election. It goes on to say:
	The bass management plan has suggested:...Nursery Area additional measures and enforcement to protect juveniles
	and
	Increases in Minimum Landing Size to strengthen the brood stock.
	I accept that the Minister has announced nursery areas. I welcome that and I praise him for that announcement, but it is only part of the picture. The document concludes:
	Labour welcomes the publication of the Bass Management Plan and following discussion with the authors, has agreed to a programme of implementation.
	At this point, it is fair to say that the sea angling community was fairly content with my party, and with the direction of travel in respect of the policy of conserving valuable species. The Minister's predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Bradshaw), made good that promise when he launched the DEFRA consultation in 2005 to increase the minimum landing size for bass, in order to produce a sustainable fishery with more and bigger bass for the commercial and recreational sectors. That proposal was based on sound science and in the interests of conservation and the environment. It followed a report from CEFAS, which made it perfectly clear that the sound policy to adopt, which would maximise the yield per recruit, would suggest that
	gains...can be made in all areas by increasing the size at first capture up to about 44-48 cm...At a size of 40 cm at first capture, YPR gains will be small, but significant gains...will be achieved
	in the long run. In respect of the impact on the commercial fleet, the report says that under a scenario of a 40 cm minimum landing size with no discard mortality,
	landings were significantly reduced in the short term...but subsequently recovered to levels similar to, or above, the status quo,
	assuming, of course, mesh netting controls and bass nursery areas.
	To summarise the matter of policy, it was quite possible to put together conservation measures that would deliver more and bigger bass for the commercial sector and the recreational sector. The question that all sea anglers are asking is, what has changed? What changed the entire direction of travel of policy from 2002 onwards in the past few months? I go back to CEFAS. It is DEFRA's main agency, and leading scientific body, by which Government policy is informed, and from which it is derived. A presentation was made on 1 October by Mike Smith of CEFAS, which said quite clearly that the
	analysis...indicated that increasing the age at which bass were first exploited would improve long-term yields and boost recruitment to the spawning stock.
	On a general summary of benefits, it says:
	The chief policy benefit has been the acceptance that protecting juvenile fish stocks works.
	The optimum spawning size for female bass is 42 cm. It is a simple act of conservation science that every species should be given the opportunity to breed once. Not to allow that does not promote sustainable fishing policy. Not to do so would not be in the interests of the environment, or in the interests of the oceans.
	The consultation was launched. There was a predicable outcry from the commercial sector, but then there was an outcry from that sector when conservation measures had to be introduced in the American striped bass fishery and in the Grand Banks in Newfoundland. The commercial fishermen now welcome those measures, which were put in place to sustain the stocks and allow them to recover. It is important that as politicians we take the long-term view, not the short-term one. My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter took the long-term view in his statement in 2006 when he announced the conclusions of the consultation and his intention to increase the bass minimum landing size to 40 cm from 36 cm, and then on to 45 cm, beyond the optimum spawning size. The DEFRA press release contained quotations from the Minister's predecessor. He said:
	I have listened very carefully to the representations made and have not taken this decision lightly. I have accepted the arguments for a bigger minimum landing size to help increase the quantity and size of bass. This will also give better protection for the stocks. There may be short term costs from this measure before we see future gains but it is vital that fisheries management takes a long term view.
	I emphasise,
	it is vital that fisheries management takes a long term view.
	That is not my view. Those are not the words of sea anglers, but those of a previous Fisheries Minister. He went on to say:
	The recreational fishing sector makes a major contribution to our economy and it is important that their voice, as well as those of commercial fishermen, is taken into account in fisheries management.
	In the future, I intend to increase the landing size further to 45cm, but subject to the results of a review, in 2010
	in connection with
	the measures I have announced today.
	The increase to 40cm will bring the minimum landing size closer to the average spawning size for bass...As a result, more juvenile fish will be protected and there would be increased recruitment to the spawning stock. This will in turn increase the number and size of bass available for capture to both the commercial and recreational sector.
	He concluded:
	I have taken on board the concerns expressed during the consultation by the commercial fishing sector about the impact of an immediate increase to 45cm and the need for a reasonable implementation period to minimise the cost of net replacement.
	It is difficult to establish exactly why the Government have reversed that decision. It is also difficult to understand why the hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) is nodding at every phrase that I say. During a recent fisheries debate, he chastised me for supporting a minimum landing size for bass. I have quotations from him that query the wisdom of the Government's going down that road in the first place. Perhaps I should let him speak so that he can explain his absurd attitude.

Bill Wiggin: As we have until half past six, I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. What has changed is that the Government have not responded with an alternative. My difficulty with the minimum landing size as a stand-alone measure was that the purpose is surely to get professional fishermen to change the sort of gear that they use. As a stand-alone measure, the minimum landing size does not achieve that, but as part of the bass management plan it does. That is why I am nodding, why I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman secured the debate, and why I am disappointed that we are not seeing the joined-up thinking on fishing that we were promised by the Government. That is a great shame.

Martin Salter: At the risk of sounding churlish, I must say that those political gymnastics are worthy of the Liberal Democrats, who, of course, are not here. One must welcome support wherever it comes frombe it from the Conservatives, or from other sources.
	My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is a reasonable man. He has sought to be reasonable in everything that he has done. He may have made a decision that, in my view, is fundamentally wrong, but he has attempted to engage all sides in the process. The hon. Member for Leominster has raised an interesting point. We need to weigh in the balance the impact of establishing nursery areas. We also need to weigh in the balance the impact of increasing mesh size from 80-90 mm, say, to 100 mm.
	We need to know what the Minister plans to do about inshore netting. Although bass spawn at sea, there is a mass migration to the coastal waters around Britain, particularly around the west country and in the English channel. Those shallow inshore waters are most vulnerable to commercial exploitation. Not only do we need nursery areas and increased net sizes, but, if we are to do the right thing by long-term fisheries conservation, we need to limit inshore netting and trawling in some of those sensitive areas. Of course, the marine Bill, which has cross-party support, will give us the opportunity to do that.
	The Under-Secretary made it clear in his announcement that he is prepared to review the decision. In the face of the science and the change in the direction of travel, what would trigger that review? What would make him question his decision?

Stephen O'Brien: I am sorry to have missed the first eight minutes of the hon. Gentleman's speech because the debate started early. As he knows, I have tabled some written questions about the subject, and I have two active and articulate constituents, Kevin Aston and John Halton, both recreational fishermen, who have made representations to me about the importance of maintaining the balance between recreational and professional sea bass fishing. Has the hon. Gentleman received any intimation from the Under-Secretary or anyone else of why, when the previous Minister marched us a long way up the hill, encouraging us to believe that a new balance would be struck between the interests, we have been marched down again? Has the evidence changed? Has the European Union applied some sort of pressure? Has commercial fishing put pressure on the Government? From where does the hon. Gentleman believe the pressures have come to cause such a significant change? My constituents have been badly let down. They believed that their responsible representations meant that they had some Government encouragement.

Martin Salter: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. Much as Conservative Members would love to blame the European Union for everything from climate change to the price of cheese, its hands are relatively clean on the issue that we are considering.
	The Under-Secretary is more than capable of speaking for himself, but I believe that he has taken note of representations from the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, which is a well-funded and effective lobby, as, indeed, it should be on behalf of its members. The Under-Secretary has shown concern, especially for the small boat fleets off the south and south-west. Many fishermen are frustrated by their inability to get more of the cod quota. That hit the headlines in recent days.
	That does not negate my point that it is incumbent on us to take the long-term view. The science shows that, although the minimum landing size for bass would mean a short-term depletion in the fish available to be caught by the commercial sector, there would be a long-term increase. The Under-Secretary must recognise that. We are considering centimetresthe difference between 36 and 45 cm. That difference means doubling the weight of the sea bass, which is a valuable species for recreational fishing. Just as people spend a lot of money to catch quality salmonfar more than salmon would ever fetch on a fishmonger's slabpeople will spend a lot of money to enjoy quality recreational bass fishing on the fly, by bait or by using lures, plugs and spinners.
	Bass is an immensely valuable resource, which we should protect. Global warming means that stocks of juvenile bass have risen to some extent, but the recreational fishery is undervalued if only stunted bass are available through the removal of a great proportion of the stock at too early a stage in its life. That is why the decision is wrong and represents short-term thinking. That is bad for local economies in the long run.
	Many strategy documents come out of DEFRA, and that is welcome. The Under-Secretary has published the recreational sea angling strategy, which promises more and bigger fish, while at the same time not raising the minimum landing size for bassthe most important fish for recreational sea fishing.
	Here and in meetings throughout the country, I have tried to make the Government's case for a sea licence. There is an argument for a sea licence, although I absolutely agree with the National Federation of Sea Anglers that it could be implemented only if sea anglers see a significant improvement in the sport available to them. The decision that has been takenthis extraordinary U-turndrives a coach and horses not only through the recreational sea angling strategy, but through any attempt that I or others could make to create a consensus on a sea rod licence.
	The Prime Minister has talked about vision. We need to talk about vision if we are serious about protecting the harvest that our oceans can deliver for us. My worry is that the decision that has been taken is short- term and lacks the vision to which we must all aspire.

Jon Cruddas: My hon. Friend is making a fantastic contribution. As an angler and a member of the all-party angling group, I do not underestimate the significance of the issue throughout the country. I have been contacted by many people about it. Angling is the biggest participant sport in the country, with approaching 1 million sea anglers. With another hat on, my hon. Friend is chair of the all-party angling group. Does he have any plans to convene an emergency meeting to forge an all-party consensus and take the issue forward?

Martin Salter: I think that I have now. I am particularly minded to forge an all-party consensus in light of the helpful comments made by the hon. Member for Leominster, who I believe might have something to say.

Bill Wiggin: rose

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I must remind hon. Members that I have allowed some latitude with one intervention. Regardless of time, Opposition Front-Bench spokespeople are not allowed to make a speech or an intervention in these debates.

Martin Salter: It is probably worth putting on record that the hon. Gentleman was nodding his assent. I would welcome any opportunity to work with hon. Members across the political divide, as I have sought to do on angling and conservation, to see whether we can test, probe and challenge the decision, and encourage the Minister to come forward with the review that he promised.
	In conclusion, this is a sad day for sea angling. Bassone of the few fish that I have never caughtis a totemic species. It is highly sought after and a valuable resource. It was recognised as being worthy of protection by the Prime Minister's strategy unit. We had a fine policy in place. We had done the heavy lifting, but in the final furlong there has been a change of heart. I know that the Minister is a serious politician, so I hope that he will listen seriously to the representations that I and thousands of others will continue to make. I hope one day to return to the House and praise him for making the right decision in respect of an important British fish species.

Jonathan R Shaw: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) on securing this debate, as it provides an opportunity to set out more background to my recent decision on bass and to describe measures that I intend to take with a view to delivering benefits to sea anglers. I am grateful to him for his invaluable work in raising the profile of angling in general and, in particular, for his active involvement with sea angling representative bodies.
	I am aware that many of those bodies wanted to come together with one voice. My hon. Friend has worked tirelessly to ensure that that happens, so that there is effective discussion and dialogue with the Government. It makes it much easier for the Government if there is one voice. Bringing those bodies together is not easy work. It is time-consuming work and I am sure that the whole House is grateful to my hon. Friend.
	My hon. Friend has said some kind words about me. We have been close friends since we came to the House. One never knows what is going to happen, but when we both walked in here for the first time as Members of Parliament for our respective constituencies in the south-east region, little did he or I imagine that we would one day be discussing this matter from our respective positions. He knows of my high regard for him, and for the way in which he has brought together the sea angling community. I assure him that I will continue to work with him and with that community.
	Let me deal first with the decision on bass. I announced on 25 October that the minimum landing size for bass would not be increased from the current EU size of 36 cm to 40 cm. I made this decision after full consideration of the evidence and following a meeting with the fishing industry and angling representatives. I brought together the anglers and representatives of the industry for a presentation by scientists at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture ScienceCEFAS.
	Before making this decision, I was aware that the consultation on the issue had generated some 2,800 responses. That is a large postbag for a fisheries issue. The replies demonstrated that views were generally polarised between anglers who were strongly in favour of an increase and commercial fishermen who strongly opposed it. Against that background, whatever decision was reached was likely to be contentious. With this in mind, my approach was to ensure that my decision took proper account of the science and all the other evidence. I was also clear that I would not reach a decision until both parties had had a chance to put their case to me.
	The meeting that I convened at the beginning of October gave me the opportunity to hear the views of those who have been closely involved with the debate. Commercial bass fishermen and bass anglers made it very clear to me how important bass was to them. The meeting also gave an opportunity for the scientific advice on bass stocks to be fully debated. This advice from CEFAS scientists has been that the bass stock appears to be fished sustainably and that a succession of successful year classes, together with a suite of effective management measures, has resulted in a doubling of bass stocks since the mid-1990s.
	That view is endorsed by the International Council for the Exploration of the SeaICESwhose report I have here. ICES advised the European Commission in 2004 that bass stocks around the UK coast appeared to be fished sustainably. For example, it reported:
	The prognosis for sea bass stocks in the English Channel...is that fishing mortality levels are sustainable...spawning stock biomass levels are as high or higher that they have been over the previous 20 years and that strong year classes continued to be sufficiently frequent to ensure that recruitment maintains both yields and the stock.
	The same report also noted that the package of bass conservation measures introduced in the UK in the 1990sincluding the creation of 37 key bass nursery areas, which we closed to directed fishing for basshad met their objectives.
	The sciencefrom ICES in 2004 and our own scientific advicehas remained consistent since the consultation. However, the circumstances in which I am making my decision have changed. My hon. Friend was right: I am particularly concerned about the impacts on the under-10m fleet in the short to medium term. It is difficult to quantify the impact on the profitability of individual vessels, but it is clear that bass between 36 cm and 40 cm makes up an important share of the catch for these vessels.
	Our regulatory impact assessment identified that, with an increase to 40 cm, the costs to the industry would have been around 1.4 million in the first year, with reduced landings for three to four years, and subsequently recovering to the levels that pertained before the increase. This sector of the fleet has faced a number of additional pressures this year in relation to the availability of quota species. Inshore netters fishing for sole, cod and plaice have been particularly affected in 2007, and, as a non-quota and plentiful species, bass is an important displacement stock for those fishermen.
	I am also concerned about the effects of any increased minimum landing size on discards of basswhen fish are thrown back into the sea, often dead. That is a key issue for fishermen and for managers, and the European Commission has recently produced proposals to reduce the number of discards in key fisheries. The largest discard impact would have been on trawlers in the eastern English channel. At 40 cm, an estimated 55 tonnes of bass would have been discardedand would probably have diedfrom UK inshore trawlers each year out of an average trawl catch of around 230 tonnes.
	Finally, when I reached my decision I bore it in mind that we now had a clear indication that other member states and the Commission would not support an increased MLS, as we had originally hoped.
	I have heard the argument, which my hon. Friend advanced, that the MLS should be increased, as it is currently set below the spawning size for bass. I should clarify that although 42 cm is the average size at which female bass will have spawned once, it is not necessary to introduce an MLS of 42 cm to ensure stock sustainability, given the current scientific advice that the bass stock is being fished sustainably at a MLS of 36 cm.

David Drew: Having been a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and having conducted investigations of fisheries in the past, I think it fair to say that scientific advice is not constant, but varies significantly over a period. Is it not better to take the cautious route, and consider whether we should increase the minimum landing size?

Jonathan R Shaw: In making decisions of this kind, we have to weigh the competing demands. I am trying to explain why I reached my decision within the competing demands represented by the wishes of anglers who have presented the powerful case articulated by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West and the representations made to me by fishermen. I will, however, make some further points which are relevant to what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew).
	I too have heard the argument that an increase in the MLS would have generated an increase in angling activity which would outweigh the financial impact on commercial fishermen. I have some sympathy with that argument, and I accept that managing fisheries to take account of anglers' requirements could develop the sport and lead to increases in angling-related expenditure on items such as tackle, bait, travel and accommodation. Bass anglers have made that point as part of their case for an increase, and my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West referred to it as well. Our analysis was less certain: despite the large increase in the stock in recent years, the evidence that we had on bass angling showed that the number of bass anglers over a similar period had not changed significantly. Our analysis also showed that many shore anglers would not see the benefits from an increase, as most bass inshore measure less than 40 cm.
	Generally there are limited data available relating specifically to angling for bass. I accept that that is a shortcoming, and I aim to address it through a research and development study that I announced along with my decision on bass.

Stephen O'Brien: I am interested in the fact that the Minister has a research and development study in mind.
	One of the greatest expenditures in recreational sea bass angling is the boat. That is certainly the case for those who fish off north Wales and in the Dee estuary in my part of the world. That expenditure is often entered into with a repayment term of some years, so predictability of risk is needed.
	Counting the number of recreational sea bass fishermen must also be looked into carefully. I cannot believe that the figures are as constant as suggested, given that I am told by peopleeven by one of my neighboursthat they fish regularly and often invite friends, who are therefore introduced to the sport in a way that might mean that they are not counted in the statistics.

Jonathan R Shaw: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West.

Martin Salter: I thank the Minister for giving way, and I say to him that I have no intention of bobbing up and down to interrupt him.
	Does the Minister feel well served by the data put before him? It is not possible to define a bass angler. They are not spawned on the moon and exported down to Britain. Bass is a sporting species. Many trout, salmon and coarse anglers, for example, enjoy bass fishing, but they might not appear in data. From my extensive contacts in the angling world, it is my contention that bass angling is becoming more popular but is at risk as people are frustrated at the lack of availability of decent-sized bass to catch. Baby bass angling has not got a strong future, and that is where we are at present.

Jonathan R Shaw: I am grateful for those interventions. I accept that there are shortcomings in respect of the available data. We must improve that, and I will say a little more about the matter shortly. This is an important sport, and we need to understand it better because it makes a significant contribution to communitiescoastal communities in particular.
	The regulatory impact assessment identified that other measures might achieve the aim of the increased MLS without the substantial cost to the fishing industry. We also need to ensure that the bass fishery remains sustainable. That is the reason for my announcement of a package of measures which will provide benefits for bass stocks and anglers.
	The measures include a review of the current series of 37 nursery areas around the coast of England and Wales, which have proved so successful in protecting juvenile bass. We will also be considering having more nursery areas where significant new juvenile populations of bass require protection as a result of climate warming causing bass to spawn further north and with greater success. We will also explore the pros and cons of strengthening protection in the existing areas.
	I have announced that we are funding a pilot study to explore whether closing specific coastal areas to fishing would let more bass in local populations grow bigger, and the practicalities of doing so. We will also review inshore netting restrictions where there is the potential to deliver benefits to anglers.
	In respect of all those areas, I hope that I can rely on my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, West and sea bass anglers to work with the Department and to ensure that our review process delivers what we all want.

Martin Salter: I assure the Minister that, despite my anger at this decision, I will continue to work constructively with him and his Department to seek to rebuild the consensus that has been damaged by the decision. I welcome the fact that he has agreed to meet sea anglers next week. I am in discussion with many sea angling bodies, and they are looking forward to having a similar robust but polite discussion with him.

Jonathan R Shaw: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention.
	Finally, we are funding the three-year research and development project that I referred to earlier to fill gaps in knowledge about the impacts of different management measures on stocks and, as I said, on economic activity. The study will help to improve our knowledge of recreational sea angling activity and provide a firmer basis for future action.
	In moving forward from this decision, I am clear that we need to take a collaborative approach to fisheries management, sharing information and agreeing the way forward. Such an approach will be critical to the success of the other measures that I have described, along with a strategy for recreational sea angling, which I plan to publish soon. I look forward to the work in the near future and to meeting my hon. Friend next week.
	My hon. Friend has worked very hard on this issue for the cause of sea bass anglers. I recognise his disappointment and anger. I have received many e-mails from sea bass anglers, many of which were not that complimentary. I understand the passion of those people, and my commitment is to work with them. Although they did not like my decision, they were involved in the process and they saw the information that I received in a transparent way. My commitment is that I will work in that way in the future.

Martin Salter: May I press the Minister on one point? He has been honest with the House, acknowledging that we are talking about a change of policy, but one that was motivated by concern for the livelihoods of the inshore fisherman, particularly the under-10 m fleet. If he is able in his roleto some extent, he has the powers to do thisto improve the prospects of the under-10 m fleet, will he review this decision at the earliest opportunity?

Jonathan R Shaw: In announcing my decision, I said that I would review the MLS, but I need to take account of a host of factors, particularly the under-10 m fleet's quota. Within our 2020 vision for fisheries we want a sustainable under-10 m fleet and a buoyant sea angling fraternity. We want all sides to be able to enjoy the sea and the benefits that we derive from it. My hon. Friend referred to the marine Bill, and we will be bringing forward a draft of that in the spring. Many of these matters are pertinent to that. I said that I would review the decision, and I shall do so. We must ensure that we put in place the measures to which I referred. I look forward to working with him and others on those measures, so that we can make progress.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes to Six o'clock.